


we raise it up

by savrenim



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (future foreknowledge might be more accurate), (sort of I have Weird Opinions of what constitutes as a person), F/F, F/M, Fix-it fic, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Monster!Jon, Multiple Pov, Time Travel, absolutely buck-wild Entity lore, almost certainly will diverge from season 5 about the fundamental rules of how the universe works, but hey maybe we all need something about the inherent power of hope and good, in that I'm pretty sure everyone has a chapter that is focused on them and their arc, monster!almost everyone, mostly Jon-centric though, that humanity at its core is not selfish and greedy, that we can rise up and do better, this fic is that mood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 71,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23608963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savrenim/pseuds/savrenim
Summary: Jonathan Sims reads a book and saves the world; although maybe the real salvation is the friends he makes along the way; (although perhaps the world itself and the darkness that exists behind it isn't quite as out to get everyone as it seems).OR: in which Jon is not the only Archival monster for very long, Sasha James is competent, Tim Stoker finds some catharsis, Helen Richardson is sexy, Melanie makes a very successful youtube channel revamp, and Martin Blackwood gets to brew a lot of new friends tea.
Relationships: Agnes Montague/Melanie King/Georgie Barker, Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Gerard Keay & Gertrude Robinson, Gerard Keay & Tim Stoker, Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Sasha James/Helen Richardson
Comments: 493
Kudos: 754





	1. this is a gift

**Author's Note:**

> because I am incorrigible, I am here writing a TMA fic too. because apparently I cannot have any naming schema that is not song lyrics, title and chapter names are all pulled from _Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)_ by Florence and the Machine.

It was the day of Jonathan Sims's birth, in the year of 2015, in the Archives of the Magnus Institute, when everything started to go wrong.

Or perhaps when everything started to go right. If history were to be written by the victors, 'when everything started to go right' would be recorded carefully down on the page.

If history were written by Gertrude Robinson, _'When Jonathan Sims was sacrificed to save the world'_ is how she would have put it, without a single drip of regret in her voice. She had sacrificed more than enough people in her time with the fate of the world in the balance, and she had never once regretted it. Jonathan Sims's life was not something she would hold particular remorse for, had she been there and able to scrawl out history with a pen. 

Jonathan Sims's downfall, much like the thing that drew him to the Magnus Institute in the first place, was a book. He found it on the corner of his desk after the party, wrapped neatly in old parchment paper. He half-assumed it was from Elias. He opened it that evening when he got back to his flat. There was a small plaque on the inside that read "From The Library of Gertrude Robinson." It winked up at him, an inside joke, one that he could not understand, would not understand for months and months and months. It furthered his assumption that this was a gift from Elias Bouchard. 

It sent a chill of fear tingling down his spine, but he did not listen to that. He had gotten surprisingly good at not listening to his own body's signs of fear, even though he had not been the Head Archivist for very long.

He read.

He felt.

He _experiences._

He fears.

He fears so many things, he feels the fears of every single person that he doomed, the crushing power of the Fourteen made manifest, and he Knows. He Knows everything, and ocean of too-much drowning him and yet the only thing he can breathe, the past and the present and _his_ future in the black and glowing pupil of an infinite Eye that consumes him — 

And then he opened his eyes. He was sitting in his flat, right where he had started reading the book. It was still the year 2015. It was no longer his birthday. 

Jonathan Sims — the mind of Jonathan Sims, the experiences of Jonathan Sims, the fears and hopes and pain and sacrifice and love of the life and death and life and ascension and consumption and death of Jonathan Sims — sat in the unscarred, unblemished, untested body of Jonathan Sims. The powers of the Archivist curled and twisted through weak, mortal flesh which had not earned them, held at bay by a steeltrap mind that had, fed by the fear of billions of endings that had not happened yet.

"I'm going to save the world," the Archivist said.

And then he passed out.

#-------#

There was a blaring sound, fading in and out with a heavy horrible presence that reminded him of air raid sirens, carrying with it an inevitability of stale fear and death and—

His alarm. It was his alarm. It was the morning and this was his alarm and he'd dreamed of the apocalypse and every single terrible thing he'd caused and now he needed to go in to work and act like he knew absolutely nothing because if there was one thing that was true in both future and past it was that he had no idea how to go up against Jonah Magnus.

 _It does tickle me, that in this world of would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters, the Chosen One is simply that – someone I chose,_ Magnus had said. _It’s not in your blood, or your soul, or your destiny. It’s just in your own, rotten luck._

The only chance he had of stopping Magnus was being _chosen_ again and just. Doing better this time. Being more careful. Not losing anything or anyone but Magnus couldn't _know_ or he'd be killed and replaced—

There was a small voice in his head that wondered if this whole thing was some weird delusion brought on by something that was almost certainly a Leitner in disguise. He was still touching the cover of the book, he noticed. He couldn't make his fingers let it go. He stopped trying to fling it away and tucked it into the inside pocket of his waistcoat. He could pry his fingers from it then, as it settled itself in safe by his side.

His clothes were rumpled. Yesterday's clothes. But it seemed like such a daunting, impossible task to make it into his bedroom and actually _change_ and he felt more and more anxiety building up of being away from his Archives, it— he was just— he was running late from his normal routine was all, and his archival assistants would notice if he was late. So he didn't have time. He just needed to leave the flat and walk down to the tube and get to the Archive and do his job and forget that this ever happened. 

_You can test it_ , a traitorous voice in his brain whispered. _Ask someone a question._

There was a sudden roiling sensation of nausea in his gut. It was all he could do not to dry heave. He made it to his bathroom, and just sort of knelt on the cold tile floor, a strange supplication to a strange and terrible God. He felt.... sick. Terrified every time his mind tried to shy away from the certainty that _everything he'd just felt_ was real and suddenly it felt like someone — something — was Watching him. 

Half-petulantly, he tried to turn his own internal gaze back to the endless abyss, and a comfort sunk over him. Rightness. There was a dull ache in his stomach, an itch on his skin, that he knew the Archives would cure. That _statements_ would cure. He was ready for the nausea to hit again at that, but it didn't, just a terrible sense of half guilt and half comfort, with an aftertinge of sadness. 

The Beholder would protect him, if he'd let it.

But that was wrong. It had to be wrong. _When does it stop_ , he'd remembered asking. _The guilt. The misery. When does the Eye make me monstrous?_

 _Why would it ever do that?_ Helen-who-had-become-a-monster had said. Will say. _When has your guilt, or your sadness, or your hand-wringing ever actually stopped you from doing what it wants?_

The Beholding didn't care about protecting him. It didn't care about anything. It didn't _think_ , it was an Entity, born of fear and made of fear and beyond human comprehension and even if it _did_ have some alien ability to think or feel, it wouldn't _care_ , the Ceaseless Watcher was just that— it Watched. It didn't intervene. It didn't help.

Jon — the Archivist — was on his own.

He stumbled to his feet and clutched the sink to stay upright as he tried to splash some water on his face. When he looked up, his eyes were _wrong_.

Not in any way he could quantify. They were the same washed-out but too-dark brown, more concentrated pigment than _color_ , just as they'd always been, but they— they seemed too _deep_. He didn't even know how that could make sense, but they were _too_ —

He believed everything, he realized. No need to test it. No excuses of 'just a shitily disguised Leitner' to cling to. There were Fourteen timeless entities of fear superimposed over reality and he could feel every single one of them in little spikes of fear flaring up around the world, not his yet, but soon to be. He had an Archive full of crumbs of knowledge about them and a handful of years to stop himself from ending the world. He could almost see it — _the reflections of the unblinking sky_ — in his own gaze.

He tore his eyes away from the mirror and put on sunglasses. He wasn't human, why should his eyes look the same? He had the Archives waiting for him and nowhere else that it made sense for him to be.

#-------#

Despite his inhuman status — or perhaps because of it — taking the tube to work was not the best of choices. Memories of the Buried rose up in his chest, choking him, and it was only the siren's call of the Archives that he could feel coming closer and closer that got him off at the right stop. There was a strange push and tug of how much he let the feelings — the memories — envelop him, a tradeoff of hunger and strength and terror and he didn't know how to find a happy medium of knowing _just_ enough.

And then the Archivist was returned to his Archives. 

Alone. He looked around, a bit confused as to why he was alone, and then glanced at the watch on his wrist. It was apparently not even 7AM yet.

It was fine. It was better this way. Just him and his Archives and some time to...think.

They were beautiful. They were horrible, all the perfect knowledge scattered in purposefully disorganized piles and left to wilt, and the burning need to fix it. Sorting truths from untruths, categorizing the real statements, digitalizing the false ones because he had — would have — _pride_ in everything here as a whole, in what they could become. Here he could bridge the gap between what he was and what he could be.

Almost in a trance, he drifted to his desk. The tape recorder was there, Tim had left in his office— the memories of his birthday, and all the pain they would serve to bring. He put in a new tape. Nathan Watts's statement lay on his desk, amongst the ones that he had gathered that didn't digitally record.

_Statement of Jacob, no second name given, July 15th 2011._

_It’ll get you too. You can stare all you want, make your notes and your inquiries, but all your beholding will come to nothing. When the time arrives, and all is darkness and butchery, you’ll wish you had stopped listening and run._

He suppressed a shudder. No, he didn't need to read that one, didn't need to experiment on whether Elias could hear it or not. The tape recorders worked well enough.

"Statement of Nathan Watts," he heard himself say, as if in some sort of fugue. "Regarding an encounter on Old Fishmarket Close, Edinburgh. Original statement given April 22nd 2012."

#-------#

It would be easier, he decided, if he could just think of himself as Jonathan Sims from the future. But that wasn't entirely true. He could remember the apocalypse— days, weeks, months into the apocalypse— but the further he tried to go, it wasn't— it wasn't even like the _less_ he remembered, more like, well, the _more_ , until there was too much to parse anything comprehensible about his own _experience._ It all faded out to a wall of nothingness with all the darkness and crushing pressure of being too deep under the ocean. Too much to remember. Too much to _be_ that Jon. If he had to hazard a guess, he would say that that Jon was too broken to do anything.

But he also wasn't just Jonathan Sims of the past — of the present — with memories of the future. Walking around his Archives, he could see the truths from the untruths without even opening the boxes, could taste the flavors of the statements themselves, knew what Entity they would be associated with. It would certainly make the organization easier this time around. 

Yes, his Archives would do nicely in all of this. But he — _he_ — almost felt like some sort of weird in-between mishmash of what Jonathan Sims was, possessed by the ghost of what he could be.

And the ghost of what he could be had very strong opinions on what it wanted his Archives to look like. Was it a misuse of fear-monster powers to suddenly know every single library and archival classification system in human history perfectly? And more importantly, was it a misuse of boss powers to suddenly switch his assistants over from attempting to fix up Gertrude's system with the Dewey Decimal ideas everyone had been throwing around to a colon classification system? They were mostly working on digitalizing and following up on research, it shouldn't make things too much more difficult for them.

It took his assistants about an hour to get in from the time he began moving boxes around. They needed new better materials. Boxes and shelves that would — that would _stack_ properly so that things weren't sticking out and falling down.

"Are you okay, boss?" Tim asked.

Jon definitely nearly fell down. 

"I— I need to talk to you all about— about the filing system," he said. 

"Riiiight," Tim said. "You look really spooked. Like you just saw a ghost or something." 

"I—" Jon glanced around for inspiration. "There was a spider."

"We are re-doing the filing system.....because of a spider?" Tim said.

"No it....it needs to not be in my Archives," Jon said.

"Oookay," Sasha said, stepping forward. "I am taking the spider out of the Archives. Tim, Martin, maybe help with the boxes, and then we can all talk about the new filing system?"

_Come on weird evil fear-god powers, find me a spider._

"It's....in that corner," Jon said, pointing a trembling finger to one of the bottom shelves he'd removed a box from.

"Okay, yeah, I see it," Sasha said soothingly. "Getting a paper and a cup."

"You're....hyperventilating," Tim said.

 _Yes, because there actually was a fucking spider there,_ Jon couldn't say. Whether the knowledge or the spider scared him more, he couldn't say — he was rather torn between the childhood trauma and the right now trauma of _this is real, this is happening_ and the little voice in his head that still tried to say that this all could be a coincidence. 

And then it was like it was happening in slow motion:

"You should sit down, I've got you a chair," Martin said, and he did rush forward with a chair, only the boxes had been left haphazardly stacked where Jon had been digging through them and it was as inevitable as it was unstoppable: Martin-and-the-chair knocked into a tower of boxes, and the whole thing toppled, and toppled, and toppled, like cursed dominos. 

"I'll be in my office," Jon said smartly, and he turned on heel and didn't slam his own door behind him, but only just.

#-------#

"Okay, that was weird," Sasha said. "You have to admit that was weird."

"The man is clearly hung over," Tim said. "Sunglasses down in the Archives? Didn't stop drinking when he got home, that's my call. Maybe did something a bit stronger, had a bad trip or something. Birthdays are hard."

"D'you....d'you think he's okay?" Martin said. 

"The spider was _behind_ where those boxes had been," Sasha said. "What was he doing? Was he chasing it? Or was he doing something else and trying to cover it up by pointing to the place he thought was most likely to have a spider?"

"Sometimes you just see a really nasty spider," Tim said.

"In this lighting? With _sunglasses_ on?" Sasha said.

"Alright, fine, it's weird," Tim said. "What are we going to do about it?"

Sasha turned to Martin, and not to be left out, Tim turned to Martin too.

"What?" Martin squawked. 

"You make him tea a lot," Sasha said.

"I make everyone tea a lot," Martin said.

"Maybe go make him a cup of tea," Tim said, jumping on board. "See if you can get him to confess whatever's going on. Sometimes all it takes is a nice cup of tea and a friendly face when you're hung over."

" _Tim_ ," Sasha said. "It's the nice thing to do, Martin. You're nice. Just to make sure he's okay."

Martin glared between the two of them before he seemed to remember that he was terrified at the mere concept of either of them questioning what he was doing here too much to question anything they asked him to do. "Fine," he said. "But not for you. I'm making him tea because he looks like he needs a cup of tea, okay?" And he shuffle-stormed off, an almost-hilarious mirror of the boss he couldn't be less like.

"You're sending him into the wolfden, you know that, right?" Tim said. "Jon's been picking on him since day one and is in a bad mood. That is not going to go well for Martin."

"Sorry," Sasha sighed, and ran a hand through her hair. "This just really is a mess and it— does he have any idea how much work switching over the filing system will be? We've spent the last three weeks prepping the filing system that _we all agreed on_ and then out of nowhere—"

"Upset that he's messing with what should have been your Archives?" Tim said.

"I'm upset that he's messing with us," Sasha said. "He could have called out sick if he was feeling that bad. Not take it out on us."

They stared at the mess together.

"It's a hangover," Tim said. "It'll be gone in a day and then maybe he'll apologize." 

"Jonathan Sims? Apologize?" Sasha said. "Now _there_ we'd know he'd been killed and replaced by a doppelganger, or at the very least that the world was ending." She sighed. "Well. These scattered, _unstapled_ statements aren't going to pick themselves up."

#-------#

Jon was decidedly _not_ sulking in his office. And if his hands were trembling, well—

He felt weird. _Strange_ -hungry, not normal-hungry, not fear-hungry, but fear would be better than nothing, he knew. Like eating — candy or junk food when you hadn't had a _real_ meal in a while, better than nothing but still something that turned the stomach. 

He wondered if everything in this beautiful, bright, _living_ world felt like junk food to an Entity that knew the taste of a world that had ended, a world that It presided over, over all others.

"That has to be it, right?" he asked the ceiling. It was stupid because Elias could—

 _Not being watched,_ the thought came to him. A flash of an image of Elias in a meeting. 

"Fine." He glared at the ceiling. "That has to be it. This fear tastes all....unfulfilling in the face of what you could be having."

He got the feeling the Beholding was _laughing_ at him.

He opened his mouth to— what, talk to a god? talk to himself? When there was a knock on his door that didn't wait for him to answer it. He closed his mouth abruptly. 

"I brought you tea," Martin squeaked. 

It hurt like a punch to the gut — worse than a punch to the gut — to see _Martin_. Tim and Sasha he _knew_ died but Martin—

He was almost certain that Martin had died too, after the apocalypse. He couldn't remember it. He wasn't sure if it was because it was too far after, beyond what he could reach, or if it was because he didn't want to reach it.

And thinking about it made him _hungry_. Martin wasn't— Martin didn't have any proper chronicles of fear etched into his soul yet, just human fears. About his lies being discovered. About his mother. About _Jon_ being alright, and Jon knew, he could just look a bit closer and Martin would feel _real_ fear, the weight of being watched by something that couldn't possibly be watching, and it wouldn't quite be consuming an _experience_ but it also wouldn't be _nothing_ —

It wasn't good for Martin to get close to him. Not now, not when he didn't know what he was.

He summoned the most cold, patronizing, disappointed look that he could. "Put it down on the corner of my desk. Much as I appreciate the gesture, Martin, I would prefer if you were actually doing the work you were _hired_ to do. Statements aren't following up — or _picking up_ — themselves." 

The man he loved turned bright red, all-but-dropped the tea on the edge of the desk like it burned him, and all-but-ran from the room.

Jon tried to steel his heart. He had too much else to regret to be feeling this dreadful over being rude in the face of tea.

#-------#

"He's acting perfectly normal," Martin hissed as he slammed a mug of tea on Tim's desk. A bit of it spilled over the rim. Tim didn't comment about getting liquid on the statements because Tim didn't actually give a fuck about the Archives. Martin had gone in with a different colored mug for Jon, which means at the very least Jon had accepted his cup.

It was funny, Tim mused. No matter what Jon said to and about Martin, he always accepted Martin's tea. 

"And I really don't appreciate you guys throwing me under the bus like that," Martin was saying. "Bring him tea yourselves the next time you're 'so worried.'" He slammed a mug of tea on Sasha's desk too.

It was _sad_ that Martin still tried to take care of everyone around him when they were treating him like shit, Tim decided. 

"Thank you, Martin," Sasha said.

"Thank you," Tim echoed, feeling a bit chided even though no one had said anything. Felt like someone was _watching_ down here, not even in a creepy way, in a mom-always-knew-and-was-disappointed kind of way. 

Martin gave a little smile at that, and the three of them got to work.

#-------#

Their boss decided to emerge well after lunch, deep enough into the afternoon that Tim was considering leaving; after cleaning up and finishing up the follow-up on the statements Jon had assigned them, if the filing system really was changing there wasn't much more they could do until they knew what it was changing _to_.

But their boss did indeed emerge. 

"I am very sorry about springing the different filing system on all of you," said what Tim was pretty sure was Jonathan Sims, much to the surprise and horror of two of his three archival assistants. "I know how hard you worked on it, Sasha, and I really do think you would have been a fantastic Archivist if you were given the chance and I appreciate all of the hard work and help that you have put in to trying to get this place into order. The plans for the digitalizable files will be untouched. The ones that I need to record on tape are the ones that I will be using my new system for. I will mostly be concentrating on those. I will be speaking to Elias about getting sturdier shelving and uniformly sized boxes to hold the statements, but otherwise, you should continue with the general tasks I have given you of sorting and cursory research and I will specifically ask you to look into things further when I need you."

Tim and Sasha just stared at him. Martin was also staring, but he was wringing his hands, which in Tim's opinion was destroying what would otherwise be a perfect tableau. 

"Thank you very much for your.....service," he said, and turned on his heel and marched back into his office for the second time that day. Tim got the very strong feeling that he wouldn't be leaving until they all left for home.

"D'you....okay-do-you-maybe-think-that-was-weird?" Martin said in a rush.

"Y—" Tim tried to say, but Sasha elbowed him in the ribs.

"Pressure's getting to him, and he feels bad that he snapped at us when he came in with a hangover," Sasha said. "Nothing more human than that."

Tim waited until Martin left the room before: "What?"

The look Sasha gave him was half condescending, half pitying. "He heard us talking when we were stapling. And probably when we were just cleaning up," she said, voice well below conversational volume. "Sound must carry really well down here. And now not only does he feel in over his head with this promotion and slightly guilty for accepting the job anyway, but he also thinks that the three assistants that he brought with him are bitter, actively think that he's incompetent, and are talking about him behind his back. And you know what? He wouldn't be wrong, and I feel like a bit of a shitty friend for it."

She stared at his closed office door. "It has to be. That's the reasonable explanation. It makes sense."

"I dunno," Tim said. "How do you feel about aliens? I think maybe aliens. It's always aliens." 

Sasha laughed. "Give him a week, then I'll consider aliens."

"Two days ago you were considering quitting," Tim said.

"Yeah well," Sasha said. She raised the empty mug of tea that had been on her desk since the morning in a mock salute. "To being better a friend."

#-------#

They tried to drag him out to lunch the next day, and the day after that. It was only when Tim commented "Seriously, boss? You're looking really hungry, if I didn't know better I'd say you hadn't eaten at all in the last few days, do I have to host an intervention?" that Jon took them seriously and fell upon a sandwich like a starving man. And then put it down half-eaten, looking uncomfortable and sallow, and stated that he had decided he was going to be a vegetarian and lurched across the canteen to buy himself a salad. Sasha had surreptitiously sniffed the remains of his beef sandwich when his back was turned, but it didn't smell off or anything.

They made sure to drag him to lunch every day after that, but he still seemed to be getting weirdly skinny weirdly fast. Not that he'd ever been solidly built. Only his clothes didn't— _fit_ differently, he just seemed gaunter every time they looked at him. 

The sunglasses went after the first day, and were replaced by a pair of extremely thick spectacles. Jon mumbled something about having a hard time reading the written statements in the dim light of the Archives. Sasha, who had been doing everything in her power to be Nice and Helpful and Understanding, begrudgingly put "is obviously trying to hide his eyes" on the "maybe a doppelganger" list. 

Sasha tried to get him to come to trivia night at the pub, which Jon had _liked_ when they were all researchers. Not that he'd ever admit it, and then he'd be insufferable every time they'd hit a topic he'd seen a documentary then went down a rabbit hole over. He said no. 

Sasha tried to host a board game night, even though she _hated_ board games — mostly, hated being bad at them but hated even more the sheer amount of ruthless she always became to win — and even with the not-so-subtle "it'll be just like old times" Jon turned them down. It was not just like old times with Martin sitting there, completely unaware of the whole board game night dynamic, until Tim called it early. 

Friday he swept out of the Archives precisely at 5pm moving with such a dedicated purpose that they could barely call out their goodbyes to him, let alone try to invite him to anything. It was supposed to have been another attempt at pub night, but the words died on Sasha's lips before she could get them out.

She and Tim waited until Martin parted ways from them on the walk out from the Institute to the various public transit they all used, and then both turned without speaking the way that would take them to the dingy little pub by Sasha's place. Their boss had quite possibly gotten possessed by a ghost or eaten by an artefact or Tim really didn't want to let the aliens option die, and they were going to need to be a little bit less sober to deal with it.

#-------#

Jon was acting weird, and Martin knew it. Tim and Sasha couldn't — or wouldn't — see it, which was really funny, because they were the ones who had thought Jon was acting strange in the first place but when he tried to bring it up with Tim the next day, Tim had brushed him off with a pithy statement about how maybe Jon was going through some personal stuff, and how hangovers could be a spiritual experience. He and Sasha had both looked guilty and also had suddenly started trying to hang out with Jon again, like the three of them were still all back in Research and still didn't notice Martin — which was funny, because Martin was invited this time around. Invited to grab lunch in the employee canteen, invited to trivia night at the pub, invited to board game night, although that one had ended in less than an hour after a very awkward and not particularly enjoyable game of Dominion where Sasha crushed them all and then Tim had made some excuses about needing to get home early — but Martin was very clearly an afterthought, invited because his absence would be louder than his presence.

But being ignored, it meant that he could, well — watch. 

And something was wrong with Jon.

He moved differently, and it wasn't just the obvious things, how the smallest, simplest things seemed to shake him. He moved — Martin didn't really know how to describe it, but the closest he could put was Jon moved through space like he always knew exactly where everything was. And sure, hey, maybe new glasses brought on better spacial awareness but there was something _weird_ about it. And about the way that he watched all the assistants when he thought they weren't looking. 

(They had all been looking.)

But the real thing that tipped Martin off was that Jon was no longer rude when Martin brought him tea. He stared at him instead, with too-wide, too-deep eyes — it had to be some sort of weird effect of the new spectacles, magnifying his pupils, a trick of the light — and just looked so _sad_. And he would say "thank you." If Martin tried to get close to him or talk to him at all he'd snap back into himself, say something mean, but it would come out _pained_ , and he would always say thank you. Martin kept trying, though, squeaked out on Thursday afternoon as he was coming around with his third round of tea and the Archivist just looked so _tired_ sitting at his desk, recording statement after statement straight since morning —

"Do you want to get some fresh air?"

And Jon had looked startled but said yes, and they'd made their way to the courtyard and as it happened there were no other Institute employees taking smoke breaks or anything, so they were alone. Jon's fingers twitched, but last Martin knew, he had quit smoking, and he didn't reach and pull anything out of his pockets, so maybe he had.

They stood in silence for a minute or three, just looking out across the lonely, empty little courtyard, when —

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" Jon asked tentatively. 

And Martin had found that yeah, actually, there kind of was. With his mother gone and how she'd been refusing to see him but mostly about how he _missed_ her despite everything and how it was — hard, adjusting, and coming home to an apartment where he lived alone and with the holidays coming up it was all kind of getting to him. And he had talked for a while and he felt really listened to, really _heard_ , and better than he had in a while. Jon didn't push him or rush him. Just watched so solemnly with his sad, too-big eyes and nodded at appropriate times and when the silence pushed back in after it felt like a balm, like something poisonous had been extracted from Martin. 

Like he wasn't so lonely after all. 

The thing was, Martin knew that the universe didn't work this way. He didn't get good things. His mother pushed him away, his co-workers looked down on him, and Jon both pushed him away _and_ looked down on him. Something had happened to Jon. Something had happened with his birthday or with the Archive or with the statements that he had to record on tape or with — Martin wasn't sure what but _something_ must have happened. And as much as he wanted to just — be selfish, and keep this Jonathan Sims who apparently cared about him and all of them, he owed it to Jon to try to at least figure out what happened. Do some — snooping, or whatever. He followed up on statements, it couldn't be that much different following up on a person. 

Martin wasn't even looking for it, but come Monday the opportunity presented itself: Elias called Jon up for a performance review, and Tim and Sasha were back in the stacks, leaving the Archivist's office entirely unoccupied and unwatched.

And he couldn't just.... _not_ go in there and poke around. There were piles of statements and research on the desk, as expected. The mug of tea Martin had delivered that morning, half-drunk. Martin wasn't quite sure what he was looking for, but whatever it was, nothing on the desk looked.... off.

He was about to tell himself to snap out of it and get out of there before someone caught him when he noticed that the bottom left drawer was open. Just a bit, but enough that his eye was drawn to it. He yanked it open. 

Inside was a book.

As if in a trance, he reached down to pick it up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to come scream at me on tumblr [@ savrenim](https://savrenim.tumblr.com/) . it is my personal blog so no guarantee about quality but it's currently mostly tma and shiny things, and I do post about other writing there too. if you care deeply about spoilers, you should probably avoid the post in which I ramble about a tma fic idea then have a readmore because that outlines at least what was the original premise; although things have grown a lot from there and are a fair bit more Feels and less humorous. this is plotted to be 12 chapters and 4 codas, I suspect it'll end up somewhere around 50-75k, and is all outlined and hence hopefully will have a regular enough posting schedule.


	2. it comes with a price

Jon was shaking when he made his way up to Elias's office, but when he got there, a strange calm descended on him. He let himself in, left the door open a crack, and stepped forward, his body in a perfect facsimile of the new Head Archivist anxious but not overly so about being called in for a performance review. 

"Sit, Jon, and you don't need to look so nervous," Elias said. "I just wanted to ask you how you were settling into the Archives."

"We're…making progress digitalizing, as we hoped," he said. "Getting everything in order might take a bit longer than I initially estimated, but—"

"Yes, about that," Elias smoothly cut him off. "I was curious about your new organizational system."

Jon felt his brow furrow. "We…submitted it two weeks ago. It was the first thing we did, decided on one that was similar to what we use in the library but to— to reflect the needs of—"

"No, I'm talking about the changes you abruptly decided to make last week," Elias said. "It is traditional for the Archives to be ordered into Credited and Discredited, I was curious what led you to…break from that tradition."

He should have been horrified, but he just felt sort of numb, and his mouth kept moving. "Oh. Right. Well I figured out how to record the statements that wouldn't record. They record on tapes, but those still need to be physically filed. And it seemed…. right. To keep them all in one place. I mean it—no it— it's the _only_ thing that makes sense, if we have a researcher who needs an audio copy of a non-digitalizable file they should— they should all be in one place. We submitted our filing system for review before we realized how much trouble recording the statements would be. As the person that you appointed to figure out what to do—"

"I'm not criticizing you," Elias said. "I think that you make a very promising new Archivist. I just wanted to hear your reasoning in person for the very abrupt changes you made. You seemed rather upset about the unrecordable statements the last time we talked."

Jon could feel the edges of Elias's questions poking at his mind. They were brushed aside like cobwebs, in such a way that he _knew_ Elias wouldn't feel them cut. His face was arranged to look partially annoyed and partially puzzled.

"Well, yes. But then I recorded one."

Elias laughed, a deeper and broader sound than it should have been. _Yeah, yeah, you think you're the only person in on this joke,_ Jon thought. _Don't have to rub it into all of our faces._ Also, how had he — how had _all of them_ — missed the fact that Elias had taken every opportunity to gloat in ways that only he would understand.

"I'm glad to hear that there are no problems," Elias said, still sounding far too amused. "Is there anything else that you need, Archivist?"

And despite his best efforts, Jon's mouth opened; despite his horror, he spoke: "Do you know if people want to give live statements? If any do, can you send them to me?"

Elias suddenly looked a lot less amused, a lot more pleased, and a lot more _dangerous_. Jon wanted to throw up, even though his body felt perfectly calm. "I'll see what I can do for you." 

"Right. Th—thank you."

Elias nodded, and at the dismissal, Jon got up, still feeling his limbs moving smoothly outside of his control, navigating him down the stairs and down towards the basement. It was only when he was halfway into his Archives that the pressure finally released him and he nearly tripped and fell. All three of his assistants were conveniently…. off doing _something_ , so he didn't have to stumble through awkward answers of no, he was totally fine, nothing was wrong, when _everything felt so wrong._

He opened the door of his office to indulge in a nice, private panic attack before getting back to his work properly, when it became exceedingly obvious that he was not, in fact, alone in the Archives.

Martin was standing in his office. Martin was holding the book and staring straight at him.

#-------#

Jonathan Sims was too late, of course. The curse of serving a god of learning knowledge that one would prefer to keep hidden meant that — excluding _whatever_ the fuck had just happened to him at the performance review — he could expect no supernatural help, and in fact might face supernatural hindrance, at any attempts to keep knowledge hidden. He had been stuttering over Elias's questions when Martin read.

Martin felt.

Martin _experiences._

Although he doesn't fear. Not anymore. He remembers Prentiss, the surprise and fragile joy of Jon taking him seriously, and moving into the Archives. He remembers Jon's descent into paranoia. Not-Sasha. Jon being framed for Leitner's murder. The Unknowing. Jon's coma. His time with Lukas, and how that all ended — the sheer _coldness_ of the Lonely and the certainty that he would be lost forever until suddenly Jon was there, he _saw_ Jon, and he saw Jon and he was _not alone._

He remembers the cabin, and the happiness there. The apocalypse, and how that happiness started to rot but never fester, because it was _Jon_ and he loved Jon, he knew Jon, a little apocalypse couldn't change that. The grim joy of setting out together to change things.

The fear again when they — at least he — didn't. 

He remembers dying. _The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one_ was the secret whispered by the End, and it's both…true and not. He remembers dying and he died alone. 

And strangely, it is okay. He is — at peace with that. Everyone, no matter how surrounded they are by people, dies alone. He knows it with a certainty in his soul that is devoid of sadness and a new calm washes over him. He is alone. 

And then he returned to himself.

It felt…strange. Almost as if whatever had just happened — it wasn't meant for him. But he was one of the Beholding's, so he was _allowed_ to know, allowed to keep it, allowed to…stare and not quite process what had happened. 

He got the feeling that was supposed to be a comfort. 

It was going to take…quite some time, he decided, for him to decide whether or not it was a comfort.

And then suddenly he was not alone.

#-------#

"Put that down," Jon said, a tremble back in his voice, and his awareness flooded into the room as he tried to sense what had happened when he'd been distracted, only to feel _Martin_ , the lilt of Martin's thoughts:

Oh. So _that_ was why Jon had been acting so weird, Jon must have read the book a week ago. He didn't blame Jon for trying to keep it from them — the whole thing was rather unbelievable until experienced, and their whole story wasn't the sort of trauma he'd want to spring on anyone.

"Jon, it's okay," Martin said. "I already read it."

Jon flinched back and his awareness pulled back into himself, which meant he had no way of knowing whether or not Martin was about to speak the truth:

"I don't hate you."

He stared at Marin long and hard. "I would hate me. I do — _did_ — hate me."

"Did I ever seem to hate you then?" Martin asked. His voice was — so soft. As soft as Jon remembered.

"Did you have a choice?" Jon asked. "We were all but the only ones left." 

"How can I convince you that—"

"We can't talk," Jon cut him off. "Elias is about to start watching again."

It was true, but he still felt like he was taking the coward's way out. From the expression on Martin's face, he suspected Martin felt the same, but the man stepped out from behind his desk, put the book down, and left the room regardless. 

Jon returned the book to the drawer where he'd been keeping it. He allowed the brief contemplation of a lock to cross his mind, but no, when had that ever kept Tim or Sasha out of things. A lock was a blaring neon sign that screamed 'something important is in here.' A closed drawer was — well, it had to be enough.

He shuffled around the papers that he'd left on his desk. Follow-up on some of the digitalizable statements, waiting for his approval before being filed almost entirely in the discredited section. It was busywork, but it would keep him nicely busy all day.

#-------#

Jon should have known it wouldn't be as easy as to simply avoid Martin at the Archives, as there was a muffled knock on his door that night. He opened the door, and no one was there. After a moment, he closed it again, and nearly jumped out of his skin when Martin's voice came out of thin air: "Is Elias still watching?"

Jon tried to check. It was strange. Like sticking out a hand in dense mist to see if it was raining as well, but there was something so _natural_ about the sensation that no, he was sure, and he'd be able to tell if it changed.

"He's not paying attention to anything other than whether or not I'm in my apartment," Jon said. "It shouldn't…draw his attention unless I leave. I'll make, uh —" he flicked his left hand twice "— this gesture if that's about to change?"

Martin stepped out of the Lonely, keeping the edges wrapped around his ankles for an easy retreat. "Alright. I'm here. Elias isn't watching. We can talk."

"That isn't a _toy_ ," Jon said.

"And I'm not using it like one," Martin said.

Their glare-off held to an impasse, until Jon folded, because he didn't _want_ to be fighting with Martin on top of everything else.

"Do— do you want to tell me why you— how you found me out?"

"You can ask me direct questions, I think," Martin said. "I know you're trying not to accidentally compel me, but you don't have to."

Jon rubbed the back of his neck. "I— I don't know how to turn it off and I'd really rather not mess around with your free will like that."

"No, I mean— I don't think you could?" Martin said. "I feel, um… different. I think I might be an Avatar of the Lonely? At least a—a little? And when I'm kind of standing in or near it, uh...it feels like I'm in my domain, not yours? So I think your powers are a bit more…suppressed. Which isn't to say— I know you compelled statements from other Avatars before and I'm not even sure if that's what's happening to me, just, uh…I don't think you can do it to me unless you're doing it on purpose, the way I am now."

"Right," Jon said. He took a breath. "How did you, uh…find me out? If— sorry I know that— it was just on my mind and it— "

"You were acting weird after your party," Martin said. "We all noticed at first, then Tim and Sasha kind of…dropped it, but you were acting too nice to me. So I didn't."

"Too _nice_ ," Jon said. "You figured out I'd been replaced by a monster because I was being too _nice_."

"That's a bit of, uh, an extreme way to put it?" Martin said. "It's— memories, right? And some fear-monster powers, sure. But you're still you, and I'm still me. Just now with…a bit more to draw from."

"I'm not sure that's how it works," Jon said, a his voice hollow.

Martin sighed. "Well. I'm not going to let you do this alone."

"Says the person transformed by a Leitner into an Avatar of the Lonely. I…"

"What?"

"Are you…really sure we're…we don't know what that book _did_. Does. I don't— we might know different things. Be talking about different things. I might not— I might not be who you think I am," Jon said. "You seem to think I'm— well, that doesn't matter. You rejected the Lonely in where I'm— in what I remember. But you seem to be perfectly content with it now. How did you…how did the book— how were you connected to the Lonely?"

"Uh, you went into a coma after you blew yourselves up and Tim died and we all thought Daisy died stopping the Unknowing, and Sasha had been dead for…since Prentiss, Elias was arrested, and Peter Lukas took over the Institute?" Martin said. "He took me on as his personal assistant and was…grooming me. To replace Magnus in the panopticon and look for the Extinction. And then he threw me into the Lonely when I refused, except you…saved me."

"What about after that?" Jon asked.

"We…ran off to a safehouse in Scotland? One of Daisy's," Martin said. "Until Elias— Magnus— sent you a disguised statement, and, um—"

"Right, well, that matches at least," Jon said. "I'd— I don't remember much from the apocalypse myself, too much— too much to _know_ for it to fit into my head, so I don't need to hear you describe it."

"Yes. Well. I— I think we saw the same future, then?" Martin said. "And I mean it. You're not alone. I won't let you be."

"You _have_ to," Jon said. "The minute I appear to be anything other than the perfect Archivist, I will be discarded like Gertrude Robinson was discarded. I'm not— whatever I am, I'm not strong enough to stop that from happening."

"Right. Well. You can tell when he's watching— proper paying attention watching, right? And I can use the Lonely. Not just to disappear, there are…it's the sort of thing that you can use lightly to make you feel that you just kind of…aren't worth noticing, you know? Not that that's not what everyone already thinks about me. But, um, if you really wanted to be safe, I could give you my statement?"

"Why…?" Jon took a breath. There were…too many things, all at once, for him to process. "Why should you give me your statement?"

"So you'll show up in my dreams?" Martin said. "Could use that to talk. Or at least keep you company." 

The breath came out, shuddering. There was only one thing that Martin could properly give _that_ kind of statement of, one thing that he didn't know.

"I don't think I'm ready for that," Jon said. "It — we — let's just use the Lonely for now."

He'd get used to shivering. It was fine. What was a little lack of warmth to the end of the world?

#-------#

The holidays came and went fairly awkwardly. Tim and Sasha tried to invite him first to a Boxing Day then a New Year's get-together they were planning, and he stammered an excuse that he had already made plans to go back to Bournemouth for the week.

Despite there being…nothing really for him there. He'd sold the house after his grandmother had passed away, and didn't really have childhood friends. Just childhood haunts.

Unfortunately for him, Elias had been watching when he'd made that pronouncement, so he _had_ to go. It didn't occur to him until he'd finished stumbling through an AirBnB booking that Elias would have found it funny and almost certainly perfectly in character for him to have lied to Tim and Sasha to get out of a party.

And then Martin volunteered to come with him, and suddenly it was a lot…nicer. They went on walks together on the beach, holding hands, Martin sometimes engulfed by the supernatural sounds of waves and silence alongside the real ones whenever Jon could sense Elias checking up on him. They didn't talk much; Jon wasn't quite sure what to say, wasn't quite sure if he was sad or furious that he'd been unable to protect Martin this time around from everything he — they — went through.

But he wasn't alone, and that was…enough.

#-------#

The 13th of January came, and brought with it Naomi Herne. Considering Jon had literally asked for this, there wasn't much he could do to get out of it. She was just as accusatory about their use of tape recorders, and just as scared once she'd got into recounting the statement proper.

Her fear was thick. Cloying, like too much fake honey, an amalgamation of corn syrup and dyes poured down his throat when he didn't _want_ it. Elias was watching. Of course he was, wanted to see his Archivist feed proper for the first time. But Jon was ready. He'd started musing to himself that statements that could only be recorded on the tapes perhaps were all true. Started sorting things broadly so there were ten categories, not fourteen — the Web and the Corruption were together under bugs, and the Flesh and the Corruption with rot; the Stranger and the Spiral were with each other, he hadn't sorted the End, and Slaughter, Hunt, and Desolation were all sort of thrown together — the naive categories that one would expect — but he'd been sure to find and read Carlita Sloane's statement the prior week, and did enough follow-up digging into the Lukas family that what he was about to tell Naomi could be forgiven.

"And then… nothing," she finished.

"That was when the car hit you," the Archivist said. 

"Yes," Naomi said. "I remember a second of headlights and then nothing until I woke up in the hospital."

"I see," the Archivist said. 

"So what do you think? Was it real?" Naomi said.

"It was," the Archivist said.

"That's it?" Naomi said. "That's— that's all you're going to say? You're not going to tell me what—"

"There are many encounters with the supernatural that are faked, or trauma, or misunderstanding. Although the fear can be real in and of itself, and in some sense, that is all that matters. But that is not what happened to you," the Archivist said. "Would it make you feel better if I told you that there were entities out there beyond your comprehension, made of and subsisting on your fear? That your fiance's family were cultists of one, and that you had stumbled into the lair of another?"

"It—I don't—I don't know," Naomi said. "No. Yes. But in a— _hollow_ way." She sucked in a breath. "You're insane."

"Do you really think so?" the Archivist asked.

"No," Naomi said. "I think you're telling the truth, somehow, and I'm — I'm scared right now."

"Good," the Archivist said. "Then you can do exactly what I say, and you will stay alive. You were targeted by the Lukases because they could feel it on you — the fact that you were _lonely_. It made you susceptible. A good victim. If you remain alone, the fog will come back. You need to remember what gives you connections to life, to this world — get yourself a flat-mate. Get a psychiatrist. Spend time with your husband's friends. And for the love of god, in the mist, in the dark, when you are alone, you _swallow down your fear._ Think of connections, overcome it, _starve it out of you._ "

"Is…is that all?" Naomi said.

"No," the Archivist said. "You will almost certainly have nightmares. I may be in them. If I am, use that as a sign that you are dreaming. Once you know that you are dreaming, you know that it is not real, and you can use that to crush the fear. Once you do not feel fear, the place has no hold over you. Do you understand—"

"Alright, that's quite enough!" Martin said, bustling out of seemingly nowhere. "I have — tea, if you want some? You've finished your statement, right? Can be quite the experience. Nothing that a good cup of tea won't fix."

Naomi stared at Martin, closed her eyes, shook her head slightly, like she was trying to wake up from a dream. "You…you came out of nowhere."

"Came through the door," Martin said. "You just didn't notice me."

"No, you came out of the fog just now," Naomi said. "I can…I can hear it. It sounds like waves."

"Right," Martin said. "I, uh, also had an experience like yours. My…my mother and I weren't close, and she was— she was in a nursing home, wouldn't see me. Someone that I loved had just died. He was my closest connection to everything. All of— all of my friends felt a lot more like his friends. Didn't feel much like I could… _talk_ to them without him. And then Peter Lukas became my boss." 

Naomi peered closer at him. "Are you a ghost?"

"No, perfectly real." He set a cup of tea in front of her. "And so is the tea. I brought, uh, milk? Sugar?"

She took a single spoonful of sugar from the tray that Martin was awkwardly balancing until Jon sighed and moved a stack of statements so that he could put it down on his desk. 

"So you also went into the fog," Naomi said. "How did _you_ get out?"

"Jon saved me," Martin said. "He followed me. And he…reminded me of what I loved. And then I wasn't alone anymore. It's pretty good advice, you know."

She turned back to Jon. "You could have given it in a bit less of a— a threatening manner."

Jon stared at her over thick-rimmed glasses, and she shivered. "I guess I just have resting bitch-face," he deadpanned. 

She spat out a mouthful of tea. Jon cracked a very small smile at that, and she smiled, and smiled wider, and then started laughing. 

"So. Your fiance. Did you want to talk about him?" Martin said. "Good times. Happy memories. Give him a memorial of laughter and smiles, don't lose him to that funeral."

"Yeah," Naomi said. "Yeah, actually, I do."

#-------#

Tim and Sasha stared at the door that Martin had entered and just…wasn't coming out of.

"Is he…okay?" Sasha asked. "Should we go in and rescue him?"

"It's far too late," Tim said. "Jon already murdered him for interrupting his first live statement for tea. And then had to murder the poor woman because she was a witness. There is no one there to save."

"Alright, I'll bite," Sasha said. "Where does he hide the bodies."

"Um, he…he cuts them up and puts them in the filing boxes for his new special secret room of tapes that he barely lets us touch," Tim said. 

"That would make a total mess of his office, and even if he could clean that up, we'd smell it when the bodies started rotting," Sasha said. "And I don't think they're totally waterproof, so we'd see the bloodstains on the boxes. Try again."

"Creepy secret tunnels that branch out all over under the Institute that there happens to be a secret entrance connected to his office?" Tim said.

Before Sasha could respond, three perfectly alive people made their way out of the Archivist's office, Martin balancing an entire tea set and the Jon escorting a smiling Naomi with his hand hovering behind her back, as gentleman-like as could be. Jon and Naomi left the Archives, which presumably meant that he was escorting Naomi out of the Institute himself. Martin headed over to his desk to re-balance all of his tea materials before taking them to the break room for cleaning. Tim and Sasha exchanged a look.

"So since when do we run a tea service for the statement-givers?" Tim asked.

"I dunno, she just seemed — upset?" Martin said. "It seemed like — the nice thing to do."

"No, we expect that from _you_ ," Sasha said. "Since when would _Jon_ agree? And then let you stay and chat?"

"I guess he just — she had just lost her fiance and—" 

"Martin, that was _weird_ ," Sasha said. "Tim and I are a bit worried. You've been bringing Jon tea a lot. Has something seemed…wrong?"

"He's just…stressed about the new job, I think, more than the rest of us," Martin said. "This was his first live statement, and I guess he really didn't want to mess it up. I— I'm going to clean up the tea unless — do you guys want any? I could put on a new kettle —"

"Nah, it's—" Tim started to say.

"Yes, we'd like a new kettle," Sasha said.

Martin smiled and nodded, then left.

Sasha turned back to Tim. "Okay. There are three possibilities. One: everything is normal and we're twitchy from being in this creepy basement filing horror statements all day."

"Always true," Tim said.

"Two: Jon is weird and Martin is too — besotted to notice," Sasha said.

"Also always true," Tim said.

"Weirder than—"

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Tim said.

Sasha _hmph_ ed. "Or three," she said. "Jon is weird and Martin is covering for him."

"Why are we even considering that one?" Tim asked. " _Martin_? Really?"

"Well, it's always the quiet ones, isn't it?" Sasha said.

Tim shook his head.

"There's something going on," Sasha pressed.

"When isn't there," Tim said.

Sasha ignored him. "And if there's one thing I know from making it out of Artefact Storage intact, it's that when something weird is going on, you've got one of two options if you want to survive: you either get the hell out of there immediately, or you figure out _exactly_ what is going on. I'm not quitting. Are you?"

"Fine, fine," Tim said. "Do we bring Martin in on it?"

"No," Sasha said. "Either he's already compromised, or we risk him being too — _besotted_ — and breaking down and just telling Jon. It's not worth it."

Tim grinned. "So just you and me and the long nights—"

"Of you doing your job?" Sasha said. "Impress me with some competence and then _maybe_ I'll go out for a drink with you."

#-------#

"Alright, we need to talk," Martin said that night in Jon's flat. "Why are you…distancing yourself from me? From everyone?"

"I'm not—" Jon tried to protest.

"For some reason, despite it _not_ being the case before, I have weird Lonely connection right now, and Jon, I can tell you with complete certainty, you _are_. There is a distance between healthy space and— if you wanted healthy space I would give it to you, but this is—isolation and self-destruction."

There was a beat of silence.

"I'll leave if you want me to but—" a dry laugh, "—somehow I think you shouldn't really be alone right now."

"I was— Naomi. The statement. I was worried that— that the reminders might be traumatizing," Jon said.

"Well, it wasn't, but I also don't think that's what's on your mind," Martin said. "We've been dancing around this for weeks. _Talk_ to me."

"I—it's just— you _know_ what taking statements — reading statements — does to people," Jon said. "And I'm still doing it. What does that make me? Naomi, today, it was — a _relief_. I _liked_ it. I— I need to _feed_ and there's no— Basira or Daisy or Melanie here to stop me, just you, and I don't see— well, you've been using the Lonely nearly every day and you don't look hungry, do you?"

"Jon, do you think I've been _eating_ people to get to talk to you in private?" Martin said. Jon didn't answer, which was an answer in and of itself. "I— I don't know what this is, or how it works, but it's just been…something I've been, uh, connected to and able to do. I haven't terrorized anyone with it. And I haven't felt like I've had to. And you— do you want to stop taking statements?"

"It's—it doesn't matter," Jon said. "Elias would notice."

"I'm going to kill him," Martin said.

Jon laughed. "Yeah, because that worked out so well for us last time."

"I'm not actually sure," Martin said. "I get that I died trying, but maybe you did better?"

"I— I don't know," Jon said. "The further past… _it_ …I try to go, the more there's just…too much for me to parse anything useful. You probably know more than I do."

"Alright, well then we're certainly going to do this together," Martin said. "I'm here for you. I'm also going to kill Elias. And I'd rather burn the Archives down than let any harm come to you."

"I think at this point you'd just hurt _me_ if you burned the Archives," Jon said. "And Elias, he…there are too many things to know, so he keeps track of things he deems to be _important_. General locations of people, employee chatter, he watches in specifically if something catches his eye or if he has a reason to be interested, but otherwise he mostly writes it off as background noise. Except he…he can _query_ for information, it doesn't have to be conscious looking, it— it points him where to look. And he keeps an eye out for any attempts to kill him or to damage the Institute."

"So we plan it in the Lonely," Martin said. 

"And then what happens when you need to get materials, anything to get ready? You've never wielded anything much deadlier than a corkscrew," Jon said. "That would trigger it. The little eyes that he keeps…everywhere, unblinking, ready to catch the _signs._ Are you going to go unarmed? He keeps a gun on hand these days, ever since Gertrude. Not that he would need it, he doesn't need his _hands_ to defend himself, he could trap you in a loop of your worst memories the moment you come at him and there would be nothing you could do about it. And you can't use the Lonely to get too close to him, he might not notice you using it at a distance but you won't be able to hide it right in front of him. I can feel when you're in the room, and I'm not constantly _looking_ for threats, do you know how many divorces from Peter Lukas he's survived? Maybe I— maybe we— stood a chance when I was the fully realized Avatar of the Beholding and channel of all fourteen Entities and— and had the reservoir of all the fear of the world to draw on, maybe I was more deeply connected than him and could do something— did something— then. But you and me, here and now? We're— we're nothing. If Gertrude Robinson couldn't manage it, we most certainly can't."

"So what's your plan, then?" Martin said. "Feel sorry for yourself as you let everything happen the exact same way until you cause the apocalypse?"

"No, it's — play along. Save Sasha from the NotThem. Stop Tim from dying. And Leitner, I suppose. Stop Melanie and Basira from getting dragged into all of this. Play along with what Elias wants until I'm properly a full Avatar of the Beholding and then — run away. And never read anything again. There can only be one Archivist, so as long as I'm alive he can't start over and as long as I don't read his statement the world is safe."

"Right. That's a completely bollocks plan, you know that, right?" Martin said. "Like, we're going to have to come up with something better, because there's no way I'm letting you just do — that."

"Fine," Jon said. "Right now we need to focus on saving Sasha."

"Yeah about that," Martin said. "Are we going to…tell Tim and Sasha? Or try to— take care of the table beforehand? I could maybe trap the NotThem in the Lonely?"

"Telling Tim and Sasha is too dangerous," Jon said. "They won't — it's too unpredictable how they would react. So is you trying to trap the NotThem in the Lonely, we — we both know it's possible to find, and, um, kill someone in the Lonely. That would put you in too much danger. I was thinking of, uh. Assigning her some sort of task that morning, that would keep her busy all day? Far away from the Institute?" 

"That might…actually work," Martin said.

"Of course it will, I've thought very hard about it," Jon said. 

"Not saying it's a good plan, just the least bad one I've heard from you tonight," Martin said. "But I can maybe…help. I think I can avoid Prentiss in the Lonely. I could tail Sasha safely, make sure nothing happened if it came to that."

"I don't like you using it too much," Jon said. " _This_ much. We don't know what sort of long-term effect it'll have on you. You're doing it for — for what?"

"I love you, you know," Martin said. "I saw your soul and I can tell you with complete certainty that I love you."

"Yes, well, I'm — having a bit more trouble with the personality integration than you are," Jon said. "I— sorry. That— that came out wrong. I—I know what I feel, what I _felt_ , I just—I don't trust anything that I _am_ right now and I—"

"Jon, I get it," Martin said. "Take your time. Just not too much time because you look like a kicked puppy and it makes me sad to see you like this."

"I—I love you too," Jon said.

"I know," Martin said.

"I just—I just don't want to love you because I'm _sad_ ," Jon said. 

"I know," Martin said.

"Stay for dinner?" Jon said. "It's re-heated take-out."

Martin grinned. "It's a date."

#-------#

Things settled into…almost domesticity in the next few weeks. Jon and Martin fell into the pattern of acting as normal as they could manage at the Archives, and then most nights Martin would show up like a ghost at Jon's flat and they'd spend the evening together, Martin concealed in fog and waves the whole time. It was a bit colder, sleeping in the Lonely, Martin had said when Jon had asked. But also somehow warmer, getting to hold Jon's hand, than spending the night in his own apartment. Either way, he was sleeping alone, wasn't he?

He'd said it with the sad sort of smile that he said a lot of things these days around Jon, like Jon was made of glass and it was everything he could do not to let Jon crack and shatter, and Jon hated how much Martin was _right_ , he did feel on the verge of cracking and shattering, and _he was supposed to be the one protecting Martin,_ not the other way around.

And then Carlos Vittery's statement ended up on the Archivist's desk.

Jon had meant to hide it, get rid of it, do _something_ , but he'd been distracted by trying to sort through some of Gertrude's statements and notes that he'd stumbled on to skim and file so that he continued to have a perfect amount of plausible deniability to Elias, not too much to derail the plans of a perfect naive Archivist facing his first Entity unprepared, but just enough so that if he slipped and knew more than he was supposed to he'd have an excuse — and Martin had come in with afternoon tea and had grabbed it.

"Right, test number one, I suppose," Martin said. 

"Put that down," Jon said. "We're not discussing it, you're not putting yourself in danger like that."

"Of course I am," Martin said. "What were you going to do. Assign it to another assistant? Bury it in the pile and never follow up?"

Jon was silent. 

"You were going to bury it in the pile and never follow up," Martin said. "Do you have any idea what a _horrible idea_ that would be?"

"It's the safest—"

"No, Jon, it isn't," Martin said. "If we don't follow exactly how this happened last time, we don't know Prentiss's location. We don't know if she'll go after Tim or Sasha because she wanted to bait you by attacking an Archival Assistant first, let your fear build up. _We will no longer have a good grasp on the day that she's supposed to attack the Archives._ How are you going to send Sasha away then, hmm?"

"We could— we could go together with fire extinguishers," Jon said. "Take her down. No attack on the Archives."

"And how are you going to explain that one to Elias?" Martin said. "You're on this enough ice already. We don't need that kind of scrutiny when I will be _perfectly safe_ the whole time."

"I won't _know_ that," Jon said. 

"Jon, do you trust me?" Martin said.

"That's not fair," Jon said.

Martin waited.

"Yes." The admission felt torn from his mouth, almost worse than if it had been ripped out of him by anything supernatural. 

"Then trust that I know myself when I say I can do this," Martin said. There was a rustling of paper as he put the statement back on the desk. "Boothby Road. I know the building. I'll see you in two weeks."

#-------#

Tim and Sasha waited for Jon to be finished shuffling around statements and doing general secretive Archival things in his special back room, and they all left work together, walking towards the tube lost in thought. When it was clear Jon wasn't paying attention and was well into the process of getting on his train, they turned right on their heels and marched back to the Magnus Institute. "Sorry — left my coat — you don't mind if I pop down and get it?" Sasha said to Adam, the janitor, as he was moving to lock up the front door. She had very specifically left her coat in the Archives as groundwork for this excuse. Adam found nothing strange about it, and let them in.

"What are we searching Jon's office for again?" Tim asked.

"Just— anything that might— a _hah_ ," Sasha said, snatching up her prize from the old stationary cabinet. "Tape recorder."

"That's probably some old— case file, or something," Tim said.

"No, the one he uses to record case files is on the desk," Sasha said. "This is something else. Haven't you noticed that Jon always seems to have one around, recording his conversations? Bet we'll find something on here."

"That's a stretch," Tim said. 

"We're running out of plausible deniability coat time," Sasha said. "Let's go, I've got one of them at my place to play it, took it home last week to try to see if there was anything weird about them considering the sheer number that had popped up around the Archives."

They made their way to Sasha's place, and it turned out, she was right. The tape had a record of what they had to assume was every single important conversation Jon had had in his office that day, up to and including: 

_"Jon, do you trust me?" "That's not fair. Yes." "Then trust that I know myself when I say I can do this. Boothby Road. I know the building. I'll see you in two weeks."_

"Alright, what the _bloody hell_ was that," Tim said.

"Something is happening and Martin is in on it," Sasha said. "Told you it was the quiet ones."

"No, are we going to talk about how _tender_ they're being to each other?" Tim said. "They sound like they're in love or something. I don't know who's talking, but that's not our Jon and our Martin. Jon _especially._ "

"That bit you're actually wrong about," Sasha said. "You've never seen Jon when someone is sick, have you?"

"Can't say I have," Tim said. "What, have you?"

"Yes, actually," Sasha said. "Two years ago, when we were all in Research. I got the flu really bad, called in sick. Jon and I had been handling a project together, so I also called him to let him know I was going to be out for a few days. He sounded just that — fussy — on the phone. I come in three days later because one of my other assignments had a deadline, and not only had Jon taken care of my part of our joint project, he'd finished the assignment for me. With everything he'd done neatly labelled and explained in case I wanted to check any of the steps. Was straight-up flustered when I tried to thank him."

"Jon has a soft side, who would've guessed," Tim said. "Why didn't you tell me? We could have made fun of him."

"Exactly for that reason," Sasha said. "Anyways, it's not Jon who's acting out of character here, it's Martin."

"Volunteering for something stupid and dangerous?" Tim said.

"No, dummy, he does that all the time," Sasha said. "Have you not noticed how much he throws himself into cases to try to cover up his lack of actual credentials? It's him standing up to Jon that's weird."

"And Jon listening," Tim said.

"And Jon listening," Sasha agreed. "But I think we established both Jon and Martin are acting weird and they're involved in some sort of scheme that involves — us."

"Right. At least they seem like they're trying to protect us from something?" Tim said.

"If they're trying to protect us, why haven't they _told_ us?" Sasha said. "And I don't like the fact that it involves Prentiss."

"Who is Prentiss?" Tim said.

"Worm-lady from one of Jon's special spooky statements," Sasha said. 

"Right," Tim said. "You've clearly got this on lock. So what do we do?"

"Whatever they're doing, they're worried about Elias," Sasha said. "So we— gather more evidence. Try to figure out what is going on. And then confront them with the collateral of if anything happens to us, all of that evidence ends up on Elias's desk."

Tim whistled. "Blackmail. Didn't know you had it in you."

"Yes you did," Sasha said. "It's why you like me." She bit her lip. "I get the feeling that we don't want to bring Elias into it, though. It sounds like they— discovered some sort of secret. Might be connected to Gertrude's death, and why the Archives were in such a state of disrepair. Elias could be the bad guy here, for all we know." 

"You're really not going to let the whole 'Archives in a state' thing go, are you?" Tim said.

"I'm right and you know it," Sasha said. "But it means that— whatever Jon's doing, he's still getting the Archives back in order. More efficiently than I would have imagined possible. So whatever agenda Gertrude had, Jon is almost certainly…pursuing a different agenda."

"Or maybe he's doing his job," Tim said. "Hate to defend the bossman, but he's actually pretty good at it. Him and Martin planning murder-by-fire-extinguishers on tape? Weird. Him actually stepping up and doing the job he's supposed to be doing? Not as weird."

"He went from literally no experience in library science to completely re-organizing a room on his own into a modified colon classification system in _a day_ ," Sasha said. "Even I'm not that good, it took me about a week to figure out what he was doing. Whatever's going on it's connected to the Archives."

"Right," Tim said. "So what do we do?"

"We need more confirmation than just one weird conversation on tape. I think I'm going to forget my coat a lot more this week," Sasha said. "And then we see what we can find."

#-------#

Jon tried to act normal the next morning. He really did. He'd barely noticed Martin gone last time other than the inconvenience, but this time Martin was _gone_. Prentiss must have had him trapped in…some sort of pocket dimension, because whatever was going on at that apartment, Jon could feel filth along the edges but he couldn't _see_. He all but locked himself in his office, because he couldn't deal with Tim and Sasha. Not…not now.

He'd expected to be alone. So he may have screamed, just a little, when Martin appeared out of thin air with a steaming mug of tea.

"Whoa," Martin said as the fog muffled the noise. "Thought you'd be glad to see me."

"I— Prentiss— did it—"

"It's all going perfectly, I think," Martin said. "She's still outside of my apartment. I just— I got bored, so I was testing it a bit last night, and it seemed like she couldn't tell when I was using the Lonely to disappear? Like, it— the worms don't seem very conscious. I don't think they were feeding on my fear, just trying to… get in and infest everything. Anyway. She had me in some sort of weird disconnected space, right, no neighbors, but the Lonely is its own sort of— different dimension, I guess? So I just went fully into the Lonely and it turned out I could walk out."

"R—right," Jon said. "And you're— okay?"

"Absolutely peachy," Martin said. "Oh. Right. About that. I need groceries. I forgot to stock up, so the majority of the food in my apartment is canned peaches. And I'd feel weird robbing a grocery store because I can't step out of the Lonely to pay."

"Yes," Jon said. "I can, um. Get extra lunch. Every day. Martin, I— I'm _so glad_ to see you."

Martin smiled, soft. "I'll be here every day, alright? Take naps here so I can stay awake there, be on my toes all night."

"Okay," Jon said. "Have tea with me first?"

"Of course," Martin said. "Always."

#-------#

Tim and Sasha stared at Jon's closed office door.

"So I'm surprised you're not going to bring up the elephant in the room," Sasha said. "We're two hours into the workday, and Martin is missing."

"Figured we could wait another hour before jumping to conclusions," Tim said. "Guess there's not much point. Jon's been freaking out more than normal."

They stared at the closed office door again.

"If he's not going to come out this might be our chance to poke around in his special secret spooky statement room," Sasha said.

"Hey, uh, Sasha?"

"What?"

"Has that book always been on your desk?"

"What?" She glanced over. It was— nicely concealed, such that if you were looking at Sasha's desk from a certain angle— the angles, in fact, that Jon would be primed to see walking past— it would be invisible. But now that Tim pointed it out, there was certainly a book on her desk. "No, it's not mine, don't touch it."

"Do you remember a book-shaped package at Jon's party?" Tim said. "And then he started acting weird the day after, right? Bet you twenty quid he found your weird conspiracy theory in that book. We need to read it."

"Tim, do not—" Sasha said, but she was too late; he lunged forward and grabbed it and yanked it open, then froze.

There was a period of a solid minute as Tim stared at— whatever random page he'd opened it to, but almost supernaturally still, Sasha wasn't sure if he was _breathing_ — and then his head snapped up and he slammed the book shut.

"Well. Fuck," he said.

"Tim!" Sasha said. "What— what did you just— what _happened_?"

"I remembered the future," Tim said. "I die stopping the apocalypse. You, uh, died before that. Will die. You should probably— read the book."

"I'm not a bloody idiot, Tim, this is exactly how you get yourself killed in Artefact Storage," she said. "Read a mysterious book that just had an unknown and suspect effect on one of your co workers."

"Yes. Well. Didn't seem particularly malevolent. Just gave me— everything I knew, up to my death. Could be one of those torments you if you try to change it things, but Jon and Martin clearly are trying to change things. Or at least — _manipulate_ them. And they've had the book longer than us."

"Right. So we— we should probably tell them we know, and start working together," Sasha said. "Sounded like the thing keeping them from telling us was they were worried how we'd react. So let's be the adults here, consolidate all our resources."

"Fuck, no," Tim said. "Well, maybe. Where I left off Jon was still— on our side, but he'd been a real prick getting there and he was on a real slippery slope to becoming like the monsters we were trying to stop. Elias is evil and also a murderer. We— we can't quit. We're stuck here, we don't know yet what for, and we don't know who to trust, we need to—"

"You really shouldn't talk about that sort of thing out in the open like this," Martin said. They were suddenly both surrounded by mist. "You read the book, I suppose? Then Tim, you should know better, Elias is constantly watching."

"What the _fuck_ ," Tim said. He wheeled around, and grabbed a stapler off Sasha's desk, brandishing it like a gun. "You've gone— you've gone full monster, is that it?"

"I got sacrificed to the Lonely after you died," Martin said. "Apparently remembering gives me some of the powers that I would have gotten if I'd…converted. Can we please do what Sasha said and be adults? We make one wrong move here, and Elias will just kill us all and start over."

"Right," Tim said. "Right. Yeah. You— you need to tell us what is going on, _everything_ , and then we will decide whether to trust you or not. And let us out of this weird— foggy place."

"We haven't left the Archives," Martin said. "We need to be— _I_ need to be fully in the fog so Elias doesn't realize that I'm not in my apartment like I'm supposed to be, and the two of you need to be at least partially in it to see me. We're as close to the edge as we can be."

"You—"

"Tim," Sasha said. He lowered the stapler slightly. "Martin, if you would."

And so Martin told them: the basics of fourteen entities based in and feeding from our fear in a dimension behind reality that poke through in artefacts, books, monsters, and avatars, their followers all attempting rituals to end the world; skimming through Prentiss, the NotThem, the general descent into paranoia around the Archives, Leitner and the tunnels, learning about Elias, Jon being led through collecting mark after mark from Entity after Entity, the Unknowing and Tim's death, glossed over Jon really becoming the _Archivist_ — Tim seemed murderous enough listening to the reminder of events, even though Sasha took it all in perfectly calm — up to the panopticon, the reveal of Magnus, Peter throwing Martin into the Lonely, Jon saving him. Running away to the safehouse. Elias still — following them, knowing, setting them up, starting the apocalypse. 

"And you and Jon are going to stop this?" Sasha asked.

"Yes. Um. The plan is still in the works. But now that we know what he's going to do, we can stop him. Worst comes to worst Jon refuses to read anything," Martin said. 

"Really? Because it sounds like even if Elias can't force Jon to read the thing directly, he could torture the rest of us by trapping us in bad memory loops, until Jon cracks and reads the thing," Sasha said. "Are you going to take me and Tim with you too? What about our families? Georgie? Your mother? Anyone we've ever loved. Are we all going to run away?"

"Also, we can't quit the Archives," Tim said. "Or really go away without getting sick."

" _Tim!_ " Sasha said. "Why— _why_ didn't either of you lead with that?"

"In my defense, I did mention it," Tim said. 

"I think— as long as we bring statements along, Jon kind of— _is_ the Archive," Martin said. "I think if we all stick close enough to Jon we'd be fine."

"We still can't just up and move our whole lives like that," Sasha said. "It'll never work. We have too many connections. People don't live in a vacuum. They — they'll notice if we're gone."

"Right," Martin said. "Do you— have any better ideas?"

"Is there a reason besides it being very hard that we're not trying to kill Elias?" Sasha said. 

"We've gone through it from every angle, he's — he's impossible to ambush, and he's too _dangerous_ to outright attack," Martin said. "Even Gertrude couldn't manage it."

"It just sounded like there was a part in your story where both of his bodies were standing around defenseless, honor-bound to do nothing but watch, and Peter Lukas handed you a knife," Sasha said. "Is there a reason that we're not biding our time, re-creating that situation, and stabbing him then? When you have the backing of another Avatar and from what you've just said about Death, it actively enforces deals made around its domain?"

Marin blinked. "That— that might actually work. We didn't think of— oh. Right. Sorry. If he dies, every single Institute employee dies too."

" _Why_ did you not lead with that?" Sasha said.

"I— there was— there's just— a lot," Martin said.

"Sorry, I knew that bit too," Tim said. 

"Oh, right, Tim, we actually can quit," Martin said. "Figured out how after you, uh, died. We just, um, need to permanently blind ourselves." 

" _Why_ did you not—"

"Although, um, if you're in deep enough service to another Entity that might protect you from the backlash," Martin said. "That's really all. I think. Sorry I didn't lead with it. There's a— lot, and I'm trying my best."

Tim and Sasha glared.

"Okay, fine," Tim said. "Not digging the blind thing, so let's become fear monsters." 

"Yes, well, it comes with a price," Jon said. Tim and Sasha _screamed_ , and it was muffled perfectly by the fog. "I start to sicken and die if I stop reading statements, and then share nightmares with my victims. And Martin— Martin we don't know."

"Where did you _come_ from?" Tim said.

"I popped out to give you your assignments for the day and you were missing," Jon said. "There was also the very particular…flavor of the Lonely in the room. And I'm very good at finding Martin in the Lonely."

"Right. Well. Maybe you can contribute," Sasha said. "Give me— give me a moment to think." She closed her eyes. "It seems like our problem with killing Elias — Magnus — if we can get Peter Lukas to do all of the same things, is that it'll cause everyone at the Institute to die. But it's also— these Entities seem to love rituals. Everything is ritual this, ritual that. So we design a ritual that— passes on the heart of the Institute from Magnus to Jon. The ritual can be as simple as him reading a paper, right? So we trick him into reading a paper, just like he was planning on doing. Then we— then we kill him."

Jon tried not to think about the fact that all it had taken was the _rest_ of them learning about what the future held for Sasha to stand there planning a murder unflinchingly.

"That—" Jon paused. "I don't know if that would work. But I also don't know that it _wouldn't_. Gives us at least something to— think about. I can see why Gertrude wanted— well— it doesn't matter. I just— what matters is I think that might work. Which we can talk about later, we should probably— get back to things before Elias notices _everyone_ is gone."

"We're really sure this is happening?" Sasha said.

"Events are happening on the same dates we remember," Jon said. "We've gathered more than enough confirmation for ourselves, although you and Tim are free to try to verify it your own way."

"And you're sure we can change it?" Sasha said.

"We already have," Jon said. "Naomi didn't go quite as well last time."

"She filed a complaint with Elias," Martin said.

"Yeah, that sounds a lot more in character with how Jon's first live statement should have gone," Tim said. Sasha swatted him on the shoulder.

"Let's go stop two apocalypses, then," Sasha said. And the fog around them faded, depositing them back into the Archives; back into the colors and brightness of the real world; except now — of course now — they were no longer alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as should be kind of obvious and quasi-stated in the tags, but this fic is season 5 divergent; _something_ happened after the apocalypse that I am leaving purposefully vague because I find it difficult to make myself diverge from canon before the exact moment that something becomes an AU, but almost certainly as more episodes come out more details of post-apocalyptic happenings will not match with what I'm trying to write and I have Made My Peace With That, this fic takes place in the 1-4 realm anyways.
> 
> anyways. feel free to come scream at me on tumblr [@ savrenim](https://savrenim.tumblr.com/) as always.


	3. who is the lamb

" _Dear Jon,_

_I hope that you don't mind me writing to you. I know that we met in an official capacity and this isn't about a supernatural incident so I may be overstepping my bounds, but you insisted that I contact you if I were ever in danger, so I thought you'd want to hear. You said to call you Jon, so I hope that's alright as well._

_I've been having dreams about you._

_That looks way worse written down than it sounded in my head. I've been having dreams about— what happened. Like you warned me I might. I was back in the graveyard, and I was so scared, and then it didn't feel like I was alone anymore. It felt like something was watching me. I turned, and I saw you standing there. I smiled at you, and you smiled back._

_Well, you didn't quite smile, your expression didn't really change at all, but — and I'm very sorry if this sounds insulting, considering how much you've helped me — you kind of seem like the sort of person who doesn't have a very smiley face, which meant that even though you didn't change your face it kind of felt like the best you could do for trying to smile. I turned back to wandering but I wasn't scared anymore. You never moved, but whenever I glanced back, you were the exact same distance from me that you'd always been. Which sounds like the setup for a slasher film, but it honestly felt sort of comforting. Just enjoying the feeling of being alone together, like we were both in on some cosmic joke and it shouldn't scare me anymore. I know you said to be careful and avoid being alone and try to wake up from the dreams, but I wasn't afraid. It was nice. A quiet space that it didn't feel like I had when I was awake, because being alone there hurt._

_It didn't happen every night, but there were a few nights of it. Until one night when I didn't even need to look for you to be not scared anymore, and Evan was there and the dream kind of...faded into a memory that I had of him and me alone in our apartment, half-napping on each other on the couch as some unmemorable documentary played, and it still felt like being in that strange foggy place but not alone. Just insulated. Space that was safe and ours for as long as we needed it, before going out and facing noisy, crowded, messy world. Not so achingly empty after all._

_I don't feel lonely anymore. I haven't had the dreams since, and I don't think I'm going to have them again. I don't know why, it's just a feeling, but that's kind of what all of this has been, hasn't it?_

_I decided to start seeing a psychiatrist. I still live alone, but I'm considering moving. My landlord says no pets, but I'm thinking of smuggling in a fish, especially once I have another place lined up. Worst comes to worst I'll glue googly eyes on a rock, have a little buddy watching out for me in the waking world too. I joined a support group, and I'm making friends there. As...._ it _....has been getting further and further away in time and memory it sometimes feels like nothing happened to me, that grief can be traumatic and brought on delusions and it's all just wrapped up in one bad memory that I can't trust. But it was still very nice to talk to you and have you take me seriously. I don't think I was in an emotional state to handle someone not taking me seriously at the time. I've talked a bit about it with my psychiatrist — not exactly, she seemed to think it was a metaphor that fears could seem like gods in the moment but take a deep breath and remember that it's all inside of you and you are stronger than it and as long as you can overcome your fear, it can't hurt you — it would be a really good metaphor, if it were just a metaphor. I don't know if I'll ever fully one way or another, but my life is moving on and I appreciate you for that. You seemed so stressed when we talked and worried about whether or not I'd be okay so I wanted to let you know that I was. Thank you. You really helped._

 _Sincerely,_  
_Naomi_ "

A tape recorded that Jon didn't even realize was recording clicked off. 

And Jon felt…strange. _Satisfied_. The way that a horrific live statement used to make him feel, the difference between hunger and fulfillment, the buzzing underneath his skin quieted for a moment. 

There was a knock on his door. 

"Come in," he said. 

Tim poked his head in. "Hey, bossman, Sasha and I were wondering about— are you okay?"

"Fine, yes," Jon said. "Just reading a…statement. If there is a reason you're asking…?"

"You look better than I've seen you in weeks," Tim said. "Must have been some statement."

Jon glanced down. "Yes. Must have."

He could feel Tim's eyes on him. "Honor system, I know we can't make you not lie but you _told_ us to check in, you didn't, uh, eat anybody, did you?"

"No, no," Jon said. "Naomi Herne wrote to me. She's…not afraid anymore. I suppose I am…relieved. I didn't think people could recover from— well, _me_. It— it seems like they can."

"Alright. Cool," Tim said. "Did you have me and Sasha's assignments for today?" 

"Right. Yes. Corner of the desk," Jon said. "Mostly busywork today, they're digitalizable. I have a few notes on each about how to hasten the follow-up, but that should get us through the last of the boxes."

"Of the first room," Tim said.

"Of the first room," Jon agreed. "We are precisely 11.5% of the Archives ordered. About 26% of the real statements ordered. At least, the ones that are here."

"Wait, is that real, or are you pulling numbers out of a hat?"

Jon smiled, peering over the rims of his glasses as unsettlingly as he could. "What do you think?"

"I think that's a six out of ten. Good delivery, works better when you're not smiling, you just look kind of in pain," Tim said. "Thanks for the assignment, monster boss!"

He left the door open a crack, and Jon didn't bother getting up to close it; he wasn't planning on recording anything else that day. He looked at the letter again, touched the page gently, even though there wasn't anything special about the paper. Traced the first few words with his fingers.

Naomi Herne wasn't afraid anymore. And it felt _good_.

"I genuinely have no idea what's going on anymore," he told the ceiling of his office. It didn't see fit to answer him, so he sighed, and returned to the pile of papers he'd set out for himself to work through.

#-------#

It took all of ten minutes for Martin to come in with tea.

"Tim send you?" Jon asked. 

"I sent myself," Martin said. "Tim thought you were doing fine, better than fine, but said you'd slipped up and asked him a question. I wanted to check in."

"Oh, I— _fuck_ , I was— would you tell him that I'm— "

Martin waved his protests away. "He didn't mind. Mostly just wanted me to know that you were in a bit of a state."

"Send a monster to deal with the monster?" Jon asked.

"Take your tea, moping doesn't become of you," Martin said.

"This is my third cup this morning," Jon said as he took it and took a sip.

"Yeah, well, you seemed like you needed some extra support when Rosie said she had a letter from Naomi," Martin said. "And now you're in a state, but not a bad one. Good news, I hope?"

"Tim didn't tell you?" Jon said. 

"Tim does have slightly better things to do than play telephone for us," Martin said. 

"I think I… ate her fear," Jon said. "She's not scared of the Lonely anymore. It's just another memory of grief for her. She _moved on_ and I feel… _stronger_. I don't know what this _means_."

"Seems like a good thing, though, doesn't it?" Martin said.

"We don't get good things," Jon said.

"I refuse to believe that about the world," Martin said. "It's— life is _life_ , Jon, and we do. Sometimes we get a chance and we— we _make_ them."

"Of course you do," Jon said. He took another sip of the tea. "You do make good tea. I suppose that's a start. But you do still have a job to do, Martin, my Archives are in disrepair and I don't _like_ it."

"You are very cranky about your Archives," Martin said.

"I can feel — what they're _meant to be_ ," Jon said. "Which is very frustrating compared to what they _currently are_."

Martin cocked his head. "Are we talking about the Archives or are we talking about you?"

"Both? I'm not sure," Jon said. He stared resolutely at the stack of papers on his desk. "But there's one of them that I can fix. So I'm going to work on that one."

"Love you," Martin said.

"Love you too," Jon said. "Now get to work."

#-------#

Tim and Sasha watched Jon and Martin go home together.

It wasn't strange, they'd done it every day since Martin had returned and pretended to be shaken and given a 'statement' for the benefit of their watcher over the Prentiss attack, and Jon had offered his flat as a safe place to stay. Tim made a questioning gesture and Sasha, who had picked up better on sensing these things than Tim — all it took for a human, after all, was a healthy awareness of one's own fear — made the 'we're not being watched' sign. 

"They're a couple," Tim said.

"We should _not_ jump to conclusions like that," Sasha said.

"They're definitely a couple," Tim said. 

"Like we're a couple?" Sasha shot back.

"That is an entirely different discussion and I actually think we should re-have now that you know I'm a suave action hero who stops an apocalypse," Tim said.

"A dumb self-sacrificing idiot who would get himself killed for a red herring if we don't stop you, you mean," came the immediate response with neither hesitation nor mercy. "Anyway. I'm not saying they're not a couple. I'm just saying that trauma-bonding is a genuine psychological phenomenon they both— lived through the real apocalypse together. In their heads." 

"No, I know these things," Tim said confidently. "They're a couple. If they weren't already in the future, they are now. Bet me?"

"I'm not dumb enough to take that bet," Sasha said. 

Tim grinned. "That means you know I'm right. Betcha how long it'll take for them to get married? I say it'll be less than a year. Quick courthouse jimmy, you and me as witnesses, because they can't stand not being together with everything else maybe falling apart around them. Fifty quid."

"Nah, it's obvious. Four to six months after we stop the grand Jimmy Magma. They're too noble to do it any other way," Sasha said. "A hundred quid, and you're on."

#-------#

On the 2nd of April, Sasha burst into his office, breathless, to give him her statement about the Distortion. Michael. It was exactly as expected.

"I would…like to ask you if you are alright," Jon said. 

"I'm fine. Just a bit— makes it all more real," Sasha said. "Not just my boss and my co-workers all having a collective hallucination, everything went— fine, but it's a bit to take in."

"If you wanted to quit, I wouldn't hold it against you," the Archivist said. "I think your suggestion of—" _blackout contacts_ , he didn't say, because Elias was watching. "—your alternate option would work. You could— go. Live safely."

"And leave you lot to fend for yourselves?" Sasha said. "You wouldn't last a day without me. Besides, I'm— I'm too damn curious. I need to see this through."

"Right. Well. Take a day or three off, properly heal," Jon said. "We need to— I'll talk to Elias about investing Institute funds in some fire extinguishers for—"

There was a knock on his door, and Rosie popped her head in. "Elias wants to meet with you," she said.

Jon tried not to look as shaken as he felt. "Yes. I, uh, I'm just finishing up with—"

"Right now," Rosie said. 

"I can see myself out," Sasha said. "I'm fine. Go ask our esteemed double boss for fire extinguishers." 

Jon waited for the strange sense of — calm, for lack of a better word — to descend and overtake him as he followed Rosie to Elias's office, and it did descend. It didn't really overtake, though. It just seemed content to… _watch_.

"You look nervous," Elias said.

"I— I had just said that I wanted to meet with you," Jon said. "Then Rosie came out of nowhere."

"Coincidence," Elias said. "This is about Martin. Rosie said he's been coming in with you every morning, and leaving with you every evening. I wanted to make sure that there was no…indiscretion in my Archives."

 _"My Archives,_ " Jon said under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing, I— that's— that's mostly what I wanted to talk to you about," the Archivist said. "Two of my Archival Assistants — Martin, as could only be expected, but Sasha as well — have had encounters with the entity previously known as Jane Prentiss. Sasha managed to ascertain that it and its worms are particularly vulnerable to carbon dioxide. As such I believe we should place an order for a large number of fire extinguishers, and convert our fire suppressant system to CO2. Martin— Martin was trapped in his apartment for two weeks, and has been feeling rather shook up about the situation and like he can't go back there. I didn't want to keep him in the Archives, and he had nowhere else to go, so I— I've been letting him sleep on my couch."

(Martin _had_ been sleeping on the couch, specifically because Elias _had_ been watching, which Martin had not been particularly pleased about.)

"It's not your job to—" Elias said.

"He was following up on information that's _I'd_ asked him to," Jon snapped. "He's a part of _my_ Archives. Of _course_ it's my fault." The calm feeling curled under his tongue, shaping his words, and he didn't know where what _he_ wanted to be saying ended and what it wanted him to say began but it felt good, _so_ good, to spit out every word at Elias like a curse.

"This is a rather extreme reaction," Elias said, looking perfectly calm and if anything, a bit pleased.

"You didn't taste his fear," Jon said.

"Jon, I'm worried for you," Elias said. "This is a lot at once."

"Then install the _bloody_ fire suppressant system and get me my extinguishers," Jon said.

Elias stared at him for a long moment. "I'll do it," he said. "But if I get any complaints from your assistants that your — paranoia right now — is affecting the work environment—"

Jon laughed dryly. "Oh, I know. I understand your position."

"I'm sure you think you do," Elias said. "You can go. I'll take care of the rest."

#-------#

Dr. Lionel Elliott, at least, went better than Naomi did before Martin had swooped in to rescue him. Martin was still in the room, of course, gently nudging attention away, but Elliott's eyes never landed on him.

Elliott gave his statement exactly as expected, and with some slightly nicer prodding than Jon had utilized the first time, he produced the apple with the human teeth.

"Thank you. This will be very useful for us," Jon said. "Well, this should be more than enough."

"More than enough to _what_?" Dr. Elliott asked.

"You did encounter a genuine case of the supernatural," the Archivist said. "There is no need to be particularly alarmed, their actions indicate that they are done with you. That is often not a consolation, for people in your position, but it is true. This particular aspect of the Stranger can be deadly, and in this case it is straightforward enough to handle. So we will be handling it."

"And what in the bloody hell is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"While we our founding principle is to simply observe and record, there is precedent for the Magnus Institute to pair up with Hunters," the Archivist said. "Those trained and endowed with abilities to put down monsters for good. Your collection of _John Doe_ s will be looked into, and if it is determined that they have taken a human life, they will be eliminated."

"Killed, you mean," Dr. Elliott said flatly. 

"That would imply that they were living," Jon said. "These are a category of…puppets. Mannequins. Things that are made. And _they_ have no qualms about killing, Doctor. This is what you wanted, was it not? To be taken seriously? Some form of closure? To feel like you _did_ something? Well, you did something. The apple with teeth is more than enough for a Hunter to pick up the scent. Your class of unnatural students will never torment or otherwise hurt anyone again."

"R..Right," Dr. Elliott said. "Yes. I…. yes. Thank you."

"Glad to hear," Jon said. "My assistant—" Martin appeared out of seemingly nowhere. "—will show you out."

#-------#

When the good doctor was properly gone, Jon hid the apple in yet another drawer of his desk. It was… strange. A spur of the moment instinct to….what, confess plans of murder? And more than that, he had promised something that he didn't particularly have any plans to deliver on.

Well. He certainly knew at least one Hunter that once he had properly befriended her, probably wouldn't mind another set of monsters to hunt down. He'd save it for a lean month. Right now, Prentiss was his top priority.

If Jon had bothered to look, he would have noticed that the apple was gone the next day. But he did not bother to look.

#-------#

Dr. Elliott didn't appear in any of Jon's nightmares. Jon tried not to think too hard about what that meant. 

#-------#

The next two weeks passed excruciatingly slowly. The wait wasn't actually that easier, knowing what was coming. There was a reason the Ceaseless Watcher was a fear, Jon mused. Knowing what was coming almost made it worse.

The day of, he tried to stay calm. Everyone had been as prepared as they could be. He had _wanted_ to keep all three Archival Assistants with him, to — control all variables, but Tim had insisted on going for lunch early then hadn't come back. The spider appeared, as expected, on the cheaper shelving that he hadn't replaced.

Oh, how naive he'd been back then, to not have known, not have _noticed_ , that the Web had oh-so-gently tugged his hand and forced Prentiss's, marking him up for something greater and collapsing her ritual all with a nudge he'd never looked back on to question. 

"Sasha, text Tim," he said, and then he crushed the spider with perhaps a bit more vicious force than necessary, the shelves collapsed, and it all began.

#-------#

The thing was, Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, expected the experience of the first of the traumatic shitshows of his tenure to be....detached. Numb. The waiting was done. He'd already gone through it once, he thought that he could just.....sit back and watch the really bad parts, and not feel, not care. He'd gone through much worse, Prentiss shouldn't have _mattered_ in the grand scheme of things.

It wasn't working that way.

Even _knowing_ how this was going to end, that everything was going to be just fine, that Jane Prentiss was going to be dead, even _seeing_ Elias with his hands on the fire safety valve, ready to release the gas the moment that the worms touched his skin, even with the firm confirmation that it was just him and Jane here, that he had succeeded, _no one else was going to be hurt_ —

He was still scared.

He didn't want to be eaten.

He didn't want to be _burrowed into_ and _chewed up_ and _left for dead_ as Jonah Magnus laughed about the sheer difference in aptitude of his new Archivist against his old one, checking off the first of twelve marks. What if he hadn't been good enough this time around, if Elias hadn't liked his performance reviews, if _Magnus_ suspected? What if it was all for nothing, and he _didn't_ survive?

It was almost reflexive, at this point, staring at the tidal wave of squirming maggot-like bodies and the woman-shaped thing that led them, when the question popped out of his mouth and the full power of the static that dripped around it. 

"What are you doing here?" 

A snarl rose on Prentiss's face, but the tide of worms pulled back. "I'm killing you," she said. "Crushing you like you crushed my worms for weeks and weeks and weeks, one more Eye of the Ceaseless Watcher closed."

It was hope. If he could just keep her talking—

"No, why here? What were you doing under the tunnels?" 

"We were building up numbers. Power. A doorway. A ritual, as you Institute thralls categorize such things. A perfect becoming. The love of the Hive spread across the entire world and your clean perfect categories and knowledge and _separation_ erased in one fell swoop."

It wasn't working, or rather, it was, but he could _See_ Elias and Elias wasn't going to pull the lever until Jon was properly marked— that bastard, a worm had already gotten his leg, he just wanted his Archivist to taste the _fear_ — but—

Oh.

Unless something that Elias considered even more dear was to be threatened. 

He was a genius, Jon decided, a proper genius, for finally having a good idea that Sasha didn't have first in all of this. He tried to keep how pleased he was off his face and summon up his prior naiveté — there was something always stronger about asking for knowledge that he didn't _Know_ , and he could still feel him in there somewhere, the Jon that he could have been, screaming and screaming and screaming in horror—

"What do you mean, the Ceaseless Watcher? What are the rituals? Are there more of them?" 

Jane Prentiss opened her mouth, and then instead of an answer coming out, came the most horrific scream that the Archivist had ever heard again. The CO2 descended. 

_I don't actually need to breathe_ , Jon reminded himself. _I can wake up at any time. It's more realistic this way. Let your body be human and faint._

He still felt fear — the crushing, weighted fear of the Buried in his memories and the fear that everything that was happening, everything that had happened, he had made up in some sort of weird stress dream and he was going to suffocate here and now on the air that he couldn't breathe, it was the only thing that was real — and it all went black.

#-------#

He woke up outside in an ambulance, with Elias hovering over him, an uncharacteristic expression of concern carefully poking through the professional mask he always wore.

He waited to feel frozen inside his own body as some other presence took over and dealt with Elias, but it didn't happen. Which was both strange but also, maybe it was the trauma of re-living a near-death experience, but all he could feel was furious about it. His weird Avatar-Of-The-Ceaseless-Watcher side made his life a living hell, it could at least pull its own _fucking_ weight. 

He tried to pull up his recollections of the old Jonathan Sims instead as a shield. He and Martin had been talking about how to pull off a proper _con_. He just didn't expect to have to do it when exhausted and covered — well, not covered, actually, in bleeding scars from worms — but _spiritually_ it felt like he was.

The old Jonathan Sims cared very, very much about how much Elias approved of him. But that wasn't quite...right. He'd cared about the work and the work being good in as objective of a manner as possible, but there was a part of him back then that had felt a sort of kinship with Elias. That Elias was maybe the only other person who understood. 

And oh, wasn't that a sickening thought. He sunk into it. 

"Are you alright?" Elias asked.

"Where am I?" Jon said. "What happened?"

"I—"

"Wait," Jon said, patting himself down for a tape recorder. "Stupid question. Prentiss. It's over? I should take your statement."

He felt a weird sort of hungry and knew that this was _dangerous_ , that he couldn't ask Elias too much, but some of the mania must have reached his eyes because Elias almost looked proud.

"You've been through a lot," Elias said. "You just got cleared. Clean bill of health. None of the worms got into you. Mark on your leg might scar, but otherwise you're safe."

"I need to _know_ what happened," Jon said, letting the desperation into his voice. "It needs to be recorded. Categorized. _Archived._ " 

Elias laughed. "No one can deny that you're very very good at your job, Archivist, but you can go home. As your boss, I'm telling you to go home."

"It won't be _fresh_ ," Jon said petulantly. 

Elias perked up. 

"Fresh?"

Oh. That — that was too much too soon. He was just _hungry_. The growing pains were weird, and maybe he had used more than he thought of whatever it is he was to push off Prentiss. And live statements were worlds above written ones and all he could think about was how much he wanted something, _anything_ , to fill in the gaps. 

Elias was still looking at him.

His fucking calm alter ego made no sign of showing up to help.

 _Tell him what he wants to hear,_ Martin had said. _Let it be mostly the truth._

"The details. Fresh on people's minds," Jon said. "I need to _Know._ I feel....strange, and tired, and I have....I remember having......questions. It's — you saved my life, didn't you? The new CO2 systems. Manual override. But the thing and I were talking before that and I remember needing to _know_ —"

"What do you remember, Jon?" Elias asked, and there was a hint of all the subtle compulsion that Jonah Magnus could muster. Not enough to force, but honeyed lines like a web falling over Jon's throat. He shoved it around the still-screaming little part of his mind that was the Jonathon-Sims-he-could-have-been and let that answer completely truthfully:

"I don't — I don't _know_ , I don't _remember_ , I thought I'd — I thought I'd be able to handle fear better, you know? You read all the statements and can think of after all the things you would have done in that person's place but I _froze_ , all I could do was stand there and ask questions, I don't even — I don't even really know what I was asking or why, just the hope that she would keep talking and that would delay the inevitable a little bit longer. I — it's all a bit of a blur."

The Archivist pulled back the fear and let a bit of his confidence seep back through. "But I got it all on tape. So I don't need to rely on any sort of imperfect memory. It's preserved." 

"That is excellent work, Jon," Elias said. "I'll give you my statement." 

"Statement of Elias Bouchard, Head of the Magnus Institute, regarding the… infestation by the entity formerly known as Jane Prentiss. Statement recorded direct from subject, 28th July, 2016," the Archivist said. "Whenever you’re ready."

And Elias gave his statement.

It was interesting — strange — listening this time around. Because the words were exactly the same as when he first heard it, the intonation, but he could taste the bits and pieces of fear behind it. The disgust, even as well-suppressed as he kept it, of Filth and Rot in his precious Institute. And a different fear this time, one that he didn't put into words but Jon could still taste, of being _Watched_ in that boiler room with his hand on the lever, a sensation that he couldn't place but couldn't shake, watching in turn and waiting, then the abrupt fear of two hundred years worth of planning coming crashing down as his Archivist asked question after question instead of _laying down to die_ —

It filled a hunger that Jon wished he could say he didn't realize that he had, but no, he knew it all too well. 

He didn't ask about Gertrude, he hadn't seen Martin yet, he was still _sitting in an ambulance_ so he had no reasonable way of knowing, he just let the statement sit as it was instead and breathed around its flavor. 

"How do you feel?" Elias asked.

"Good. A lot better," Jon answered, more truthfully than he'd meant to. He let confusion cross his face. "I — filling in the gaps is good. It helps." 

Elias was staring at him intensely. Hopefully not using Knowing because if Jon had been blocking it, he didn't know how, so he probably wasn't shielding anything now. Maybe Elias was just searching for something in his expression. He must have found it, because he abruptly nodded. "Collect as many statements as you need to. Then _get some rest_. That's an order."

"Fine, fine," Jon said, waving him off. Elias left, and Jon stared at the ceiling.

"A lot of help you were," he said.

He got no answer. Of course he got no answer. But he could almost feel a sensation of _amusement_ reflecting back at him.

He glared as hard as he could, and then felt rather stupid for glaring at the ceiling, so he pulled himself to his feet and went off to find his assistants.

#-------#

Sasha was first, of course.

Tim was still in quarantine, but even if he hadn't been, Jon needed to see Sasha. _Know_ Sasha. She was sitting on the back edge of one of the ambulances, a blanket wrapped around her. 

It was her.

He pushed all of his abilities to _see_ , to _confirm_ , but he didn't need to. Her heart was racing like a hummingbird in her chest, there were waves of quiet fear coming off of her, tempered by an iron will. Sasha was still Sasha.

"Hey, Jon," she said.

"Hey, Sasha," he said. "How—do you want to tell me how you feel?"

"You can just ask, Jon," she said. "I don't think it's a letter of the law sort of thing, you want to know so I'm going to say it. I feel terrible, and terrified, and very _alive_ , by the way. I'd like to give you my statement."

Jon couldn't say anything, of course he couldn't; Elias was watching. It had been Sasha's idea in the first place, of course it was; Sasha really had been having all of the good ideas of their little conspiracy. She would have made — perhaps not a better Archivist — but a far better _Gertrude Robinson_ than him.

 _If you end up in the dreams of people who make statements, take my and Tim's statements after Prentiss,_ she'd said. _Dreams should be even more secure to talk in than the Lonely. The fact that Tim and I were in this together might mean that we could figure out how to use your powers to actually all three of us meet._

"Statement of Sasha James, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, regarding the invasion by the entity formerly known as Jane Prentiss. Statement recorded direct from subject, 28th July, 2016," the Archivist said.

"I was with you for the start of it, worms came through the hole in the wall in your office, we retreated to the saferoom, got the one out of your leg, sealed ourselves in up until Tim came in," Sasha said. "He looked— I knew he knew what was going on, but he was pausing, like he was considering— decking Prentiss in the face or something like that, so I ran out and tackled him. We got split up, and I fled into the Institute proper. I pulled a fire alarm because the worms were following me, and I didn't want anyone else to get hurt. I went to Elias, told him we were being attacked and needed to manually activate the CO2 systems. He didn't believe me at first, but I convinced him and dragged him out of his office to manually release the CO2. Got it on tape, if you'd like to hear it. Elias and I got— separated by— you couldn't even see the individual worms anymore, it just looked like a _wave_ of filth. There wasn't really anywhere for me to run, so I jumped out a window to get away. The fire brigade arrived shortly after, and they called the ECDC as soon as the situation was explained. I was checked over for worm holes, deemed clear and with no other severe injuries, and then just… waited for the rest of you lot to get out.

"Her scream, though. When she died. I don't think I'm going to forget that. It's nightmare material, for certain. That's… that's it, that's my statement."

"Statement ends," the Archivist said.

Sasha smiled weakly. Something was off, and Jon could feel it. Something that she wasn't telling him. A tidbit of knowledge being kept from him, and it shouldn't matter, it really shouldn't, because it was so _small_ , but maybe it was the fact that it was small that made him _want_ it.

"That wasn't all there was to the story, though, was it?" Jon asked. He tried to keep as much compulsion as possible out of his voice, besides the vague wording. Sasha was his friend, and this was Sasha. She could answer what she wanted to.

"No, it...wasn't," she said. "Elias and I got separated by the wave of filth, like I said, but there was only one direction that I could run. Only one clear path. I ended up in Artefact Storage."

"You _what_?" 

"I know," Sasha said quickly. "And I thought I was going to _fucking_ die and that was why I jumped out a window on the second floor. It's a miracle that I got away with just a thorough bruising, but it..."

She trailed into silence, and what it didn't seem like she was going to continue, Jon said, "What?"

"You know the feeling when something is there? When something has its eyes on you, when you can just tell that there is a monster in the room?" 

"Yeah?"

"Nothing was there," Sasha said with a horrifying finality, and Jon _knew_ it was the truth. Knew before she even had to say it — "Whatever was supposed to kill me, I don't think it's in Artefact Storage anymore."

#-------#

The taped clicked on.

"Do we really have to do this now?" Tim said. "I want to go home."

"I just need to get it on tape," Jon said. _The edited version_ he mouthed. They weren't being watched, Elias had too much else of the cleanup to oversee, but that didn't mean they needed to put their conspiracy on tape.

 _I'm not stupid_ Tim mouthed back.

"The fact that you were being quarantined for making an itching joke would suggest—" Jon started to say. Tim raised an eyebrow. "—uh, put, or rather has put, the Archives, uh, very behind without your excellent work to help us get things back together, so the least you can do is make sure the event is properly recorded while all the details are fresh in your mind."

Tim was making a face that Jon very much did not appreciate, that strongly suggested it was taking all of his willpower not to break out laughing.

"Alright, let's do this," he said.

"Statement of Timothy Stoker, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, regarding the infestation by the entity formerly known as Jane Prentiss," Jon said flatly. "Statement recorded direct from subject, 28th July 2016." 

"So for some reason my boss was being a complete _arsehole_ and fanatic about getting this one statement in particular done this morning and pretty clearly wasn't going to let any of us go to lunch, so I headed out to pick up lunch early. Decided to order take-out so that I'd be back well before our scheduled lunch break even, but there was a line. Some kind of holdup in the kitchen, I dunno. Anyway. Took me longer than expected to get back but I wasn't going to be that prick who called in an order then never picked it up, and it's illegal for you to try to tell me not to take a lunch break. What were you going to do? Not like you could fire me one way or another. 

"I could tell something was wrong immediately because you hadn't come out of your office yelling at me, so I figured the big attack we'd been preparing for for weeks had started. I was trying to figure out if I continue into your office and make use of the _special materials_ gathered there or go pull the fire alarm because that bit hadn't been done yet and you lot were clearly all trapped and not doing it when suddenly Sasha's screaming at me, I'm half-tackled, and I catch sight of Prentiss, who honestly — it kind of seemed like bad low-budget special effects, you know? Where the SFX bloke clearly tried _too_ hard, like, her face so full of holes it’s like, “my eyes are up here”, but they’re not, you know?

"Sasha was halfway to the exit of the Archives so I tried to get to your office. I'm clean, worms were too slow to get me on the way, and I knew you'd been stocking an absolutely bonkers number of fire extinguishers. I'd seen you carrying them in but I honestly thought we had about half as many as we did. I wasted no time, grabbed one in each hand and went full Gas-Rambo on the worms, who were not being very respectful of the fact that I'd closed the door. But I knew it was only going to last for so long, you know? Couldn't breathe. 

"And then I found the oxygen tank. And that was when the afternoon went from good — to _great_."

"Tim, could you please take this seriously," Jon said as tiredly as he felt.

"Would you rather I talk about the nightmares of being eaten?" Tim said.

"Point taken," Jon said. "Continue."

"Thank you.

"Anyways, I empty another fire extinguisher on the worms that are besieging the office, but it didn't seem like I was going to make too much progress, and the tunnels looked empty, so I stacked as many of the fire extinguishers that I could into that little unfolding cart you got for carrying boxes around the Archives and headed down into the tunnels. And this whole time, I'm on a _roll_ , like, worms will jump out and I'll turn around and just blast 'em. They were faster in the tunnels, proper jumpscare material, but they couldn't handle all —" there was an almost audible gesture of Tim sweeping his hands up and down in front of his body. "—this. So I carved a path through all the worms until I got to a wall that I could hear you and Martin talking on the other side of, bashed through it, and totally rescued you. I deserve a raise for that. Elias, if you're listening, I deserve a raise. Saved your precious Archivist's life."

" _Tim_."

" _Jon_. Anyway, I save your life and lead you and Martin into the tunnels. Except the tunnels were so dark and confusing. _So_ sorry about how we all got split up down there, _total_ accident on my part. I was wandering around _totally alone and lost_ when I stumbled across this room with a huge circular mass of worms on the ground like they were trying to form a doorway. So I razed them, two full fire extinguishers. There didn't really seem to be many more worms in the tunnels after that, so I just wandered around looking for light until I came out a few streets over. There were a bunch of ambulances out front the Institute so I went over to see if everyone was okay. Fire brigade was already there. I volunteered to go back in to get you — oxygen tank, and all that — but they sent me over to the hazmat people instead. Got checked over, quarantined for three hours, and now really want to go home."

"Statement ends," Jon said. The recorder clicked off. "Is there— if you want to tell me how you're really doing?"

"Honestly? Good. Pretty good," Tim said. "I expected it to be disgusting and terrifying but it was almost kind of _fun_. CO2 was right where I expected it. Your directions through the tunnels were perfect. It was a bit more exciting when they were moving properly down in the tunnels but they jumped out at me what, twice? They never got near me. Feels kind cheap, but hey, we won."

He must had seen something on Jon's face, because he continued: "You did good, boss, okay? You did perfect. Planned it out, executed it, nobody got hurt. Can I go now?"

"Yeah," Jon said. "Uh, check in with Sasha, make sure she's okay? But the both of you can go home when you want. Stay...safe."

#-------#

Jon tried to will the time to pass quickly. Tried not to be too worried about Tim's tone and his future. About what Sasha said about the NotThem. But most of all, he tried not to worry about Martin, Martin who he hadn't seen in _hours_ , who he couldn't sense, who—

Martin appeared. The normal way, through the hole in the wall of Jon's office.

"You're late," Jon squeaked, and then he all but fell on Martin, staring at his eyes, his face, patting him down, looking for worms or blood or bruises. "You're— I— I didn't know what _happened_ , what was taking you so long, if the worms got you—"

"Okay, okay," Martin laughed. "Glad to know that I'm loved."

"I couldn't _find_ you," Jon said. "The combination of the tunnels and the Lonely were too much and I— I didn't know if you were— " He buried his face in Martin's neck. Martin carefully wrapped his arms around him and Jon sunk into the hug. It was a solid minute before Jon was willing to emerge, and pushed himself back to try to address Martin with some semblance of professionalism. 

"So. You're alright. The tunnels. Everything went as expected?"

"I. Right. Yes. That was what I was supposed to tell you before," Martin stammered. "I..."

"Martin, _was she missing?_ " Jon asked.

"No," Martin answered. "I found Gertrude in the tunnels."

"That's....exactly what you were supposed to do?" Jon said. "You find her in the tunnels. You should go tell the police about it so things go the same."

"No, Jon, you're not listening to me," Martin said. " _Gertrude Robinson is living in the tunnels._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aND WELCOME TO THE FIRST REVEAL THAT I HAVE BEEN DESPERATELY SCREAMING INTO THE VOID, YOU DIDN'T THINK THIS FIC WAS GOING TO JUST NICELY FOLLOW CANON BUT FIX THINGS, DID YOU? 
> 
> (I have been waiting. to get to this chapter. we're through the setup folks, 20k+ of setup time to get into the real fic, things are about to officially start getting _interesting_.) 
> 
> feel free to come scream at me on tumblr [@ savrenim](https://savrenim.tumblr.com/)


	4. and who is the knife

"What?" Jon said.

"Gertrude Robinson is alive," Martin repeated.

And then it hit. The Archivist started laughing, and laughing, and laughing, and he couldn't stop. Martin looked a little bit put out. "What?"

" _From the Library of Gertrude Robinson_ ," Jon said. "We're all such— we should have _known_ — this has been her all along, it's all been _her_ , we were idiots to think for a second that in a world where a book can show you the future that Gertrude Robinson wouldn't have— how... how's she doing?" 

"Blind," Martin said. "But otherwise seemed to be fine. She was…shorter than I expected."

"What, did she have a _trauma surgeon_ on hand when Elias shot her?" Jon asked.

"I don't know, she didn't say," Martin said. 

There was a knock on the door and Jon nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Oh, great, Martin, you're alive!" Tim said, poking his head through as he opened the door a crack.

"Weren't you going home?" Jon said, attempting to inject the sheer amount that he was _not amused_ into his tone.

"Sasha and I decided we wanted to go for drinks and were going to invite you to join us," Tim said just as cheerfully. "Although Martin, you should probably go see the ECDC folks and do your proper time-out in the quarantine corner like the rest of us."

"Seriously?" Jon said. "He's all but an Avatar, another Entity can't—"

"Yeah, seriously," Tim said. "You don't get to play favorites with Archival Assistants. I had to do it, then so does he."

"I....probably should see the police first," Martin said.

"Why?" Jon said. "Martin, why do you need to see the police?"

"Right. Well. I did find a body," Martin said. 

Tim, who at this point had let himself fully into the room, rapped a knuckle against the poster that he and Sasha had chipped in for the Archivist's office which simply read, in bold print, " _WHY DID YOU NOT LEAD WITH THAT._ " It may have come up, a few times, over the course of really properly filling Tim and Sasha in on the things that were pertinent that they had fairly strong feelings about what information should come first in various scenarios. 

Sasha pushed her way into the room next to him. "Wait, there's a problem with the body? You didn't find Gertrude?" 

"I found her alive, had a nice chat," Martin said. 

"The _body_ , Martin," Jon said.

"Right," Martin said. "Leitner. Leitner was beaten to death with a bloody pipe. Looked like years ago."

Sasha raised an eyebrow, and with the finality of a cat slowly pushing a glass off the edge of the table, also tapped the poster. 

"Oh. Well. You should tell the police, I suppose," Jon said, attempting to ignore his wayward Archival Assistants.

Said Archival Assistants were having none of it.

"Well, this sounds like a right mess," Tim said. "We'll be at the Pig's Ear. You know, on Old Church street. Join us when you're done."

"I really—" Jon said.

"Wasn't a question," Sasha said.

Jon glared at the two of them. "You know, it's really not fair when you gang up on us."

"And it's really not fair that we died fixing your problems!" Sasha said in a perfectly sunny tone. Dangerously sunny. "If you're not there in two hours, we'll know you're skipping out on us." Monsters, the two of them. 

"Also," Tim said. "I am going to make you and Martin a power point about _leading with the important information_ , as the poster clearly isn't working."

He linked elbows with Sasha, and they turned to go. Jon caught a "well I _told_ you that we should have put kittens on it—" "—and I _told_ you that if it just looked like a cheesy motivational poster—"

He and Martin exchanged a look. He sighed. "Police?"

"Police."

They left his mess of an Archives. He'd piece it all back together another day.

#-------#

Only while Jon could physically leave the Archives, his mind kept circling back to the fact that _Gertrude Robinson was alive._ Tim was pushing drinks in front of him and someone must have ordered food because there were chips that he sometimes robotically shoveled into his mouth, but mostly he just stared off into the distance like that might magically let him see under the tunnels.

Apparently, she hadn't said much to Martin; he'd gone to the room where he'd expected to find her, found her alive and waiting for him, she'd told him that it was about time for her to be made known to the Archivist, and then shooed him off. He'd found Leitner by accident, stumbling back through the tunnels somewhat in shock towards the Archives instead of the street. 

"Jon. Jon. Earth to Jon," Tim said. "Just— let us celebrate our first victory, will you?"

"Everything we thought we knew is gone," Jon moaned. "Up in smoke. The future is— slipping from our grasp, we—"

"I really don't think we have that much to worry about," Sasha said.

"Save me, Sasha," Jon said. "Save us all with your competence."

"Well it just seems like Gertrude read the book, right?" Sasha said.

"Yes," Jon said.

"And every time Gertrude Robinson has come up you've seemed, well — honestly a bit in awe of her," Sasha said. "Like you're trying to live up to her legacy. And like you're judging yourself against what Gertrude Robinson would have done in your position." 

"Y—so what?" Jon said.

"I bet she was just waiting to see if the next Archivist was also going to try to stop these rituals," Sasha said. "How much the big boss had told you, if you were the sacrifice or a player. And you were clearly pretty helpless. So you were given the book. Then she was probably trying to judge what kind of Archivist you were going to be with your memories, and I think you passed. Prentiss gave us all the excuse of finding the tunnels. She wants to talk to you. She probably wants to help."

"Or kill me," Jon said.

"Don't be silly," Sasha said. "She'd need what you know first, and the person most likely to have a full understanding of Jimmy's plans is the next Archivist who would be at the heart of them."

(That was another discovery of Sasha's; the names 'Elias Bouchard' or 'Jonah Magnus' would often, although not always, draw attention. Tim and Sasha had taken to using butcherings of Jonah's name; Jon would usually default to You-Know-Who, and Martin would simply spit out a pronoun with a sheer amount of animosity that everyone but Jon did a double-take every time.) 

"I see you're not denying that she might want to kill me," Jon said.

Sasha shrugged. "You've told me about her. Besides, me, Tim, and Martin will go with you. Between all of us, I'm sure we can take down one blind woman, right?"

"Never, but I appreciate the sentiment," Jon said. "When the police clear out of the tunnels, I suppose." 

He stared morosely at his drink.

"Well, get it off your chest, then," Sasha said. "You're clearly still not happy."

"I don't want to ruin your night," Jon said.

"Just means you need to come with us for drinks again," Tim said. "The mood has been pretty thoroughly dunked, you might as well finish."

"I just don't know what it means that we missed the NotThem too," Jon said.

Sasha let out a low breath.

"See?" Jon said. "I'm—I'm sorry."

"Don't be, it's reasonable to address," Sasha said. "It was just a feeling on my part."

"I checked," Jon said.

" _What?_ " Martin said, well overpowering the equal exclamations from Tim and Sasha with the panicked squeak in his voice.

"While you were with the police, went to see if the table even was in Arefact Storage, we'd— we got the lighter as expected, I thought everything had happened as expected but I realized I didn't remember Elias coming to talk to me about the table, so I— I went to check if it was there," Jon said.

"You can't _do_ that without me!" Martin said. "What if you'd— what if you'd been in danger?"

"I can— Martin, we have canonically established that I _can_ talk people to death," Jon said. "I'm not defenseless." 

"You're also not a fully powered Archivist!" Martin said. "That was— that was _stupid._ "

"I agree," Sasha said. "That was a bit of an unacceptable risk. Especially without telling your team."

"Sorry," Jon said. "The table was there and you're right, it was empty. The NotThem isn't in it or in Artefact Storage. The table was…unbroken, so it wouldn't be able to travel that far away from it. If it's loose, it's loose in the Institute."

"That would be one of those clown fuckers that killed my brother, right?" Tim said.

"Y—yes," Jon said.

"And you could tell Sasha was Sasha, you think you could identify this thing on sight?" Tim said.

"Yes," Jon said. 

"Cool," Tim said. "Bagsy."

"Tim, this is…worrisome," Jon said.

"Then maybe you should have just taken the celebratory drinks," Tim said. "One night of victory! One night!"

Jon raised his half-empty drink. "To doing this again, then."

He would do whatever it took to ensure that after the Unknowing, they were all still here to do it again.

#-------#

Jon almost missed Basira; it was a matter of pure luck the four days later that he ran into her as she was clearing out of the tunnels and he was grabbing clearing some of the filing boxes from the room to be checked for worms and rot. There were no injuries other than the poor box, which spewed out its blessedly rot-free innards across the entire floor.

"Oh! Sorry!" Basira said. 

"Not to worry, they will be equally as organized there as they were in the stacks," Jon said. "My predecessor had interesting feelings on how to run an Archive. Constable Hussain, right? Am I to expect you around?"

"Yes, although, well— this is probably the last you'll see of me," Basira said. "Body is a few years old, there's no evidence in the tunnels, and no connection to the Institute. Bit of a cold case, no reason for us to get in your hair."

And Jon could see everything crashing down around him — no Basira meant no Daisy meant, well — no chance to help his friend, but also one less Hunter on his side. Basira and Daisy had been invaluable help and an invaluable presence in his life and he couldn't just —

"You're all the way down in my Archives, and I'm sure you've seen some very interesting things on the force," Jon said. "Can I convince you to make a statement of your own?"

No one could resist a question like that in his domain. Basira followed him to his office, and left about half an hour later, a bit pale and shaky. Sasha waited until Basira had left the basement, and then ducked into the room, not bothering to conceal exactly how displeased she was.

"You should _not_ have done that," she said.

"I panicked," Jon said. "I didn't— I didn't consider that with a different body, the police might just—"

"Free will, Jon," Sasha said. 

"She was— I could— it was for _her own good_!" Jon said. "If she doesn't call me about Maxwell Rayner she may well die!"

"We do not _do_ things to people for their own good!" Sasha said. "I get that you're upset that you don't _know_ the future perfectly anymore, okay! You've made it very clear how much you do not deal well with not _knowing_ over the past few days! But you don't get to take that out on defenseless people!"

"I wasn't trying to take anything out on anyone!" Jon said. "I— I can't— I can't fail her again, let— let her and Daisy— I don't— I don't care if everyone hates me, if you all never want anything to do with me at the end of this, I just— I need everyone to be _safe_."

"Well, you're going to have to figure that Maxwell Rayner one out," Sasha said. "I doubt she'll be phoning you for help anytime soon."

"I'm— I'm sorry," Jon said helplessly. 

Sasha sighed. 

"You're not the one going through all of this, but I get that it's a bit worse for you than for the rest of us, okay?" she said. "Just — ask for help before you go running off to do something alone."

#-------#

It turned out that Sasha wasn't the only one displeased with his actions. Tim had shrugged it off, seeming to not care at all, and Martin had been the most painful mixture of disappointed and worried and had hovered over him all night, but Jon thought at least that was that. He did not predict Elias stopping by his office for an impromptu performance review the next day.

"Jon, I have to say, I'm surprised and a little bit disappointed," Elias said. "I received a complaint from the police yesterday about your behavior towards one of their officers. They are sending a Detective to look into connections between the Institute and the dead body. I had _expected_ this all to be cleared up already, but my concerns were brushed aside." 

"Right, I—" And Jon was hit by a sudden flash of anger that he had to take this from _Elias_ as well. "What did I do wrong, exactly? I ran into Constable Hussain and asked her if she'd like to give a statement while she was down here. She—she agreed of her own free will, I didn't _force_ her, I just _asked,_ if— if she's upset that she talked to me— I know she was a bit worried about NDAs but the Institute has very secure policies—"

"I see," Elias said. "In that case, disregard what I said. It is not my place to tell you how to run your Archives, and if statement-givers regret what they shared afterwards that is not something that should concern you. I would advise you to be a bit more careful about antagonizing this new officer." He smiled. "She has _teeth_."

#-------#

Daisy was there within the hour. Jon welcomed her into his office, shut the door, and ushered her to the chair in front of his desk. Before he could even get around the desk and settle into his own chair, there was a knock on the door, and without waiting for an answer his favorite Assistant popped their head in.

"Tim and Sasha are hatching a plan to steal the key to the tunnels from _his_ office," Martin said. "So you'll be clear for— oh, hi Daisy!" 

"Martin," Jon said.

"Right, not bothering you!" Martin said, and retreated. 

Jon sighed. Daisy looked significantly more murderous than she had a few seconds prior. 

"Well, ask your questions," Jon said. "My boss wants this wrapped up as quickly as possible."

"Why was he calling me 'Daisy'?" she asked.

"Is that at all relevant to this case?" Jon said. "He read a book that told him the future, if you must know."

"If you aren't going to take this seriously—"

"I am!" Jon said. "Ask your questions, please, we have a limited amount of time."

"Do you know who the dead man was?" Daisy asked.

"No."

She leaned in, something feral flashing behind her eyes. _Tapetum lucidum._ "You're lying to me."

"And you are telling the truth. _Fascinating._ Is that a Hunter thing, or is it because you're an officer?"

"I can smell it on you." She looked surprised. "How did you do that?"

"Sorry, didn't actually mean to. Although you're a Hunter in your domain, it shouldn't be affecting you."

"What the _hell_ are you talking about and how did you make me answer your question?"

"A Hunter? That one should be self-explanatory. Why do you think you can kill vampires?" Jon said. "And all of the other creepy-crawly things that you dispose of that would tear apart a normal human? Hell, why do you think you can _smell it on me_? And your domain, well, you're here considering Hunting me, aren't you?"

"Who the _fuck_ told you about the vampires?" Her teeth seemed genuinely sharper in her snarl than they had in her smile. "And how. Did you make. Me answer. Your. Bloody. Question."

"I'm the Archivist," Jon said. "Which means that I'm a monster who sits in a basement and collects truths and that sometimes gives me a weird limited omniscience and people have to answer my questions. That's how I know who your dead man's body is. Jurgen Leitner. We collect his books. And no, I've never met him, at least not physically. Does that answer your question to your satisfaction?"

"You know, crazy people think what they are saying is true."

Jon gave her a very tired look over his glasses, his unnatural eyes gleaming right back at hers. "We have a lot more to get through. The man upstairs will only be distracted for so long, and there are certain things I'd like to say to you without an audience. So if you wouldn't mind?"

She shivered slightly. Jon didn't taste any fear, only an ugly anticipation. Yes, yes, he would be very tasty to hunt down. He gave her another thoroughly unimpressed look, and she resettled into her seat.

"Fine. Do you know who killed Leitner?"

"No."

"But you have a guess."

"The only person who makes any sort of sense is my predecessor, Gertrude Robinson. But I don't know _why_."

"Nice and neat that a dead woman did the murder," Daisy said.

"Yes, very nice and neat," Jon said. It wasn't a lie.

"You're not telling me something," Daisy said.

" _Obviously_ ," Jon said. "The body has been dead for over five years, three months, and eleven days. Give or take four months, as your coroner estimates. Before I was even working for the Institute. You didn't come here actually expecting a murderer, you came here because something seemed a bit spooky and I upset Officer Hussain. I am very sorry about that, by the way. Anyways. You were looking for a monster. You found one. Although unlike you, I haven't actually killed anyone, and I like to think that sometimes even I'm helping." 

"Yet."

"Hm?"

"Haven't killed anyone yet."

It was Jon's turn to shiver. "I admit that there are one or two people, or rather, people-shaped things, that I wouldn't mind killing. Unfortunately for me, my assistants have _bagsied_ it."

"Not particularly clever to admit plans for murder in front of a police detective," Daisy said. "Or in front of—what do you keep calling me? A 'Hunter'?"

"I honestly have no defenses other than talking you to death, but if you are going to threaten my Archives I will certainly make you spill your heart and soul to me, and I just don't think we're ready for that sort of relationship yet," Jon said. "We are allies, Detective Tonner, or at least we will be."

"Now I'd like to hear this."

"You may be aware of the recent situation that the Archives faced at the hands of Jane Prentiss," the Archivist said. "EDCD surrounding our building for days, nasty business. She was trying to cause a worm apocalypse. In fact, the Archive catalogues the actions of cultists who mess around with otherworldly powers to advance their own agendas, which usually involve attempting apocalyptic rituals. My predecessor began the tradition of us also stopping these rituals. There is a clown apocalypse coming next, and we could use some extra muscle."

"Are you _kidding_ me," Daisy said, although she perked up at the word 'cultists.'

"I do have a limited perception of the future," the Archivist said. "Which brings me to the final thing that I want to talk to you about. Maxwell Rayner."

"If you have a lead on Maxwell Rayner, this conversation might end a bit differently than it's been headed," Daisy said. 

"I haven't killed anyone," Jon reminded her. "And yes. I have a lead on Maxwell Rayner. At least, on where he will be in five months. _Which is what I have wanted to talk to you about from the start._ "

"Then get talking."

He sighed, and without him realizing it, a tape recorder clicked on.

"On the 20th of January, Callum Brodie will disappear from his home. Sitter asleep, front door open, no forced entry but a witness claiming he'd seen three unknown figures entering the Brodies’ home, so the case will be taken by Serious Crime. For three weeks, there will be no ransom demands and no clues, and then on the 10th of March, the police will receive an anonymous tip that Maxwell Rayner and his cult had taken the child and was located in an industrial complex owned by Outer Bay Shipping in Harringay. All available Section 31 officers will be called, and each paired with an armed officer to comb through the building.

"Basira Hussain will be amongst the four to find him.

"The building will be full of monsters and cultists, but the Avatar is in the basement, engaged in a ritual. Maxwell Rayner, you know him as. His first name — first body — was Edmond Halley. He has been transferring his consciousness from body to body since the 17th century, using the power of the Dark to unnaturally extend his life, and that is what he will be doing. He has chosen Callum Brodie as his next vessel, and Basira Hussain will see a thick, choking darkness pouring from him and towards Callum Brodie's throat, frozen open in a silent scream. They are in a basement, they are in a cathedral. They are in the Dark.

"Officer Goodman will open fire. Three shots, each hitting Rayner directly in the chest. Officer Altman will run towards Callum, but be hit by the Dark spewing from Rayner's chest. It will sink into him like acid. The light will return, and a cultist will run forward, bury a knife in Altman's throat before the rest can recover by the sudden shift. The cultist will be shot as well. Two dead kidnappers. One dead officer. Basira Hussain will quit the force. You will not see her again until she is taken hostage by the servants of another Entity. She will not escape that time.

"This —" he pushed a paper with hasty scrawling on it across the desk "— is the address. You are a Hunter. You are uniquely predisposed, as a Hunter, to _hunt_ and destroy a rival Avatar. Especially one so weakened. No one will complain about you handling this yourself; Section 31 never needs to be called. You will save everyone _quite_ a bit of paperwork."

He leaned back. "Although don't let me tell you what to do. I'm just a monster in a basement with limited omniscience trying to save the world."

Daisy watched him very, very carefully. "This has been quite illuminating. I'll see you in February, I suppose."

She stood to leave.

The Archivist sighed. "We are friends, you know," he said. "Or we— will be."

"Depends on how good your information is," Daisy said. "And how dangerous I decide that makes you. My investigation here is done."

The recorder clicked off, and he looked over at it, a bit surprised. 

God, that had gone— well, at least he'd fixed the Rayner gaffe. And there was a chance that Daisy wouldn't hate him, that she would decide that a tame monster who could point her at other, worse monsters was good. Which did nothing to alleviate the guilt of the fact that he knew Daisy — _his_ Daisy — didn't want to be a monster in the first place.

He laid his head on his desk.

It was fifteen minutes later that his Assistants found him like that, brandishing the key triumphantly between them. He tried to compose himself into a picture of excitement for them. One way or another, the answers they sought would be down there. He couldn't let his… _personal problems_ slow them down.

#-------#

"Alright, I'm officially worried about Jon," Tim said.

He and Sasha were in the back courtyard, not quite on a smoke break as neither of them smoked, but enjoying the fresh air.

"You too?" Sasha said. "Join the team."

"You know what I'm talking about," Tim said.

Sasha made the hand signal that indicated they were being watched. It would probably be like that for a while, considering their impromptu successful heist. Sasha was under no illusions that they'd gotten it of their own cunning, they had been _allowed_ to succeed because Elias wanted to encourage Jon's paranoia and progress, but it didn't matter whether or not Elias approved so long as it served their own plans.

"He'll calm down once he gets to explore the tunnels," Sasha said. "He's just upset Prentiss snuck up on us all. Once he's _categorized_ it, he'll be back to his usual self."

"He'd better," Tim said. "We should go tonight."

"We should wait until Friday," Sasha said. "Then if we're there late, we don't have to wake up for work."

"Counterpoint: does Jon seem willing to you to wait until Friday?" Tim said.

Sasha sighed. "I'll pick up torches then, I suppose," she said. "He better buy us all coffee tomorrow for our trouble."

#-------#

They did indeed head into the tunnels after work, although not directly; Martin insisted on grabbing a bit of dinner first, and Jon picked at his food, not quite eating it, while Sasha and Tim dug in. Unlike their attempts to rob his office, Jon had both a key to the building and to the Archives as a Department Head, so there was no need to break in.

The tunnels were a different layout the further they got from the Archives than Jon remembered, not that they had stayed the same when he'd been exploring them. Not that knowing the layout would have helped, as they didn't know where Gertrude _was_ , but it would have made him feel better. He managed to find the stairs to go down a floor. The darkness pressed in, heavier, and the Archival Assistants and their Archivist huddled a bit closer together for it. 

"It feels…strange here, like we're not alone," Jon said. "Do— do any of you feel it too?"

"Gertrude's been living down here," Martin said. "Of course there will be signs of life."

"I guess it does feel a little bit like we're being watched," Sasha said.

"Not watched," Jon said. " _Hunted._ "

And then they rounded the corner and suddenly the very not dead face of Gerard Keay was right in the middle of the light beam.

#-------#

Jon may or may not have screamed, dropped his torch, and leapt into Martin's arms like he was in some Scooby-Doo cartoon.

(In reality, he just screamed, dropped the light, and clutched Martin's side in terror.)

(But the version Tim told would always be the former. And somehow, that was the version that everyone decided to believe.)

(Tim was the real monster. Clearly.)

#-------#

After Jon finished very much not-screaming and scrambled back for his torch, the two parties just sort of…stared at each other in silence. Jon wanted to break it but he couldn't quite string the right words together in his head.

"Hi!" Gerry said, clearly not having the same problem.

"You're not dead!" Jon blurted out before he could think better.

"Yup!" Gerry grinned. "And _you're_ not dead because you burned my page! Quite nice of you, didn't actually expect it, not from an Archivist."

"What?" Jon said.

"The book was _yours_ ," Sasha breathed. "You know your future."

"Smart, you," Gerry said. "It was in my possession for a time, but it was Gertrude's first and last. Plaque is a genius touch, isn't it?"

"How are you alive," Jon said. "You— you had brain cancer."

"And then I spent several years being the monster manual for two Hunters, one of whom had terminal cancer and then just got better because the Hunt has its perks," Gerry said. "I thought long and hard about that one, lesser evils and what-not, and eventually just reached the conclusion that I didn't want to die like that." He grinned, and his teeth were far too sharp and gleaming in the light. "So I didn't. As you probably gathered, Gertrude didn't either. And that was _rude_ , Archivist."

"Sorry," Jon said. "I'm not— I'm adjusting. I didn't mean to ask, we're in the tunnels, it shouldn't— I— I just— I'm glad you're okay."

"Is anyone going to introduce me to the hot goth?" Tim said. "Sorry, babe."

"Wow," Sasha said.

"You're going to have to try harder than that," Gerry said.

"Can we— can we just— get to Gertrude," Jon said. 

"I'm here to make sure you're not a murderous monster," Gerry said. "You outlived me, after all, gotta make sure you didn't turn later. Not a good sign that compulsion would work in the tunnels."

Jon glared. Tim, Sasha, and Martin shuffled around him. He immediately pushed past them to shield them with his own body, which did _not_ work, because Sasha was tall, Tim was buff in that unfortunately attractive no-effort way, and Martin was large and soft and very huggable but not particularly well-shaped for Jon to cover him.

"Aw, you don't think your Assistants are disposable," Gerry said. "That's cute. Now that we've established that you're all still alive because of my goodwill, let's go see Gertrude."

#-------#

The room that Gertrude was staying in could only be called _cozy_. There was a rug strewn across the stone floor, a couch, an old armchair, and a rickety little bed pushed into a corner covered by a quilt. In a corner near the bed was a little metal stove-heater unit — just a simple little box with a coil on top that could fit a pan, and warmth radiating from the whole thing, with a wooden table and two chairs completing the 'kitchen' half of the room. Gertrude Robinson stood in the center of the room, looking — well, not looking, but positioned like she would be looking — at them all as Gerry escorted them through the door.

Except the person that was standing there wasn't Gertrude Robinson. 

Her hair was a darker grey than Jon remembered, and Martin was right, she was _smaller_. Her eyes were a milky white, so Jon couldn't quite compare the color, but her face was shaped wrong, it was…less severe. Lips less thin, cheeks a bit rounder. 

"Well, come in," she said, and it was in Gertrude Robinson's voice. The voice that was on the tapes. Jon was thoroughly confused, it— it felt like there was one missing detail, and it would all click in place.

"What— what is going on?" he asked. "Martin, you— you said— "

"Jonathan Sims," Gertrude — maybe not Gertrude — said. "Yes, I suppose you have seen me. I assure you, this is me."

"The NotThem," Sasha said. "Did it— get you, somehow?"

Gertrude laughed. "Sasha James. _I_ got _it_. Moved it from the table to the tunnels and sealed it in a room the moment the thing was delivered, and left the empty table in Artefact Storage as an object of interest for its connection to the Web. There's a Leitner that will trap a manifestation of the Stranger into a single form, if you know how to use it correctly. The night of my supposed death, I released it, waited for it to take my place, secure in its ability to kill a weak Archivist, then Gerard stunned it, and I trapped it as _me_. Contained within a single form, well, even the Stranger can fool the Eye. It's why we're such enemies. After that all it took was leaving enough evidence to convince it that the only way for it to free itself was to burn down the Archives, and Elias stumbled onto the scene he expected."

"That's quite a risk," Jon said. "If — you-know-who — saw a polaroid, heard your voice—"

"Not-Me did a lot less talking than I did around my death," Gertrude said. "It panicked the moment it saw Elias and tried to light everything up all quicker, and got shot for its trouble. Unfortunately mortal — well, unfortunately for _it_ — when confined into a human body. When we heard the gunshots, Gerard helped me with my eyes, so the position of the Archivist was empty right when Elias expected it to be. I have been _very_ careful about ensuring that polaroids of me do not exist. This has been a plan years in the making, ever since I sent Dekker to bind the thing in the first place. I admit, it was a bit more Byzantine than my usual style, but I think I pulled it off rather smoothly." 

The Archivist just _stared_ at her, taking the new Gertrude — well, the old Gertrude, the _real_ Gertrude — in. This was the woman who could — _did_ — beat Jonah Magnus at his own game. And how they were standing here in her territory with their rather exposed backs perfectly available to her Hunter. He briefly wondered how good of an idea coming here really was.

"Well, come in, sit down," she repeated. "We only have so much time, I would like to be fully caught up. I've had recorders around the Archives that Gerard collects for me every night, but some of your conversations seem to have been beyond me."

"That would be me," Martin said. "Uh, reading the book, regaining my memories, gave me a connection to the Lonely. I haven't really needed to feed it and it doesn't feel much like I'm being _affected_ by it, so, uh, we've been using it to disguise conversations."

"Smart," Gertrude said. "Unfortunately, it means that I know of nothing beyond Prentiss. How far along did you all survive in Jonah's attempts to enact his own ritual?"

They all turned to Jon, who looked quite a bit more unsteady on his feet than he had a minute ago.

"He's experiencing blind-sickness," Gerard helpfully supplied.

"Oh, really?" Gertrude said. "That was fast."

"What do you mean, blind-sickness?" Martin asked.

"We're in a spot that most counteracts the Eye's influence of anywhere in the tunnels," Gertrude said. "The Archivist isn't even getting a patchy, weak signal, he's cut off entirely. It can be a bit disorienting, I'm told. I never quite connected deeply enough with the Beholding to experience any of that myself."

"Here, I'll— " and Gerard helped Martin position Jon down on the couch.

"I would advise that you start training yourself to get over it," Gertrude said. "Your enemies will not be so kind as to face you in your own strongholds. What you've gained in power, you've gained in weaknesses, and if you don't have plans to work around that you might not last very long as Archivist after all."

Jon groaned incomprehensibly. 

"He's had a very long week," Martin said.

Gertrude did not look particularly impressed. "The rest of you, I assume that you've read the book?"

"I didn't," Sasha said. "But I've been caught up."

"Really?" Gertrude said. "Might I ask why?"

"It was a mysterious book with unknown effects that mysteriously appeared on my desk, positioned in such a way that I'd find it and the Archivist wouldn't notice it," Sasha said. "And then my co-worker read it in front of me _against my recommendation_ and it clearly had a rather sever supernatural effect. I'm not _stupid._ "

Gertrude snorted.

"We're past the point of my death, anyways," Sasha said. "So there's no point in me risking it, despite the large amount of evidence that it is benign." 

"Actual survival instincts and a good head on your shoulders," Gertrude said. "You should have been the next Archivist."

"And I'm fairly certain that's why I'm _not_ ," Sasha said. "Elias — I'm guessing it's safe to say his name down here? — didn't _want_ another you. He wanted a naive fool that he could lead through being marked by each of the Entities and growing in the power of the Beholding, until he could finally enact a ritual to draw all fourteen Entities together into reality. The rituals were failing because one couldn't be seperated from the others, so he thought, 'don't separate them.' He succeeded with Jon, although to get Lukas to mark his Archivist with the Lonely he made a bet that Lukas wouldn't be able to turn one of his employees on him, a bet that ought to make him uniquely vulnerable to the End. We were planning on biding our time until then, keeping him comfortable enough to make the same choices, and then just… stabbing him, instead of being noble and refusing." 

"Hm," Gertrude said. "A bet should do it, especially if it's regarding death, as the End does enforce those. Yes, I think that'll come together nicely, you need far less of my help than I'd thought."

"Actually, we're still working out the part of the plan where the rest of the Institute doesn't die with him," Sasha said.

"It's a concern, I suppose," Gertrude said. "Being blind is nowhere near as bad as being dead. The Archivist should be insulated enough in the Beholding to survive. You can align yourselves with other Entities if you don't want to blind yourself. Half of you already have."

"What about the people… _not_ working in the Archives?" Martin asked. 

"What about them?" Gertrude said. "There's nothing you can do, either they will not yet be tangled in deeply enough to die, or they will. If you alert them or start blinding all of them, Magnus will notice, and you'll lose."

"We were actually hoping to do a ritual," Jon managed to groan from the couch.

"Archivist, nice of you to finally join us," Gertrude said.

"Jonah kept going on about how he was the Heart of the Institute," Jon said. "But he's _not worthy_ of it. We force him through a ritual that passes that job on. I'm— I'm strongly enough connected to the Beholding to handle it. We figure out a way to— to untangle everyone after. But if I'm the Heart then no one will be in danger when he dies."

"That's cleaner, I suppose," Gertrude said. "If you're not burning the Institute down, the number of bodies would lead to some questions, and my old contacts in the police won't recognize me anymore. Well, if you need help in ritual design, Gerard and I have become rather experts over the years."

"Great!" Martin said brightly. "Let's get scheming!"

#-------#

They schemed for a solid five hours. Gertrude wanted the tiniest of details on everything that Jon had experienced, honing in on points that he had overlooked, sometimes hmphing slightly under her breath. When he finally worked up the courage to ask her, she said she was trying to pick out the places where the Web had intersected with his timeline.

"Doesn't work if you're aware of it," Gertrude said. "And I don't think it'll matter, as you aren't trying to avoid his manipulations, you're overlaying your own."

Martin made everyone tea twice on the little stove. 

Eventually, everyone was yawning enough that it was deemed time to call it a night. It turned out that Gerry and Gertrude were _not_ living in the tunnels, at least not full-time, although they'd made the place perfectly livable; they were renting a small house in Acton and Gerry had mostly been using the tunnels as a place to crash during the day, then switch out tapes and drop them off with Gertrude. Gertrude didn't quite trust any of them enough to give them the address, which made Jon doubt that the house was even in Acton, but they all agreed that they would keep meeting on a near-weekly basis, although without any traceable pattern, and that if there was an emergency they could contact Gerard on a burner phone.

They all almost managed to make their goodbyes sound like they weren't expecting the other party to go full-blown murder on them, like they were all one happy little Archival team, which Jon at least _hoped_ was a good start.

They'd need to be a real team by the end of this, if they wanted to win. But Jon had a fragile hope that they'd get there.

#-------#

Everyone else went home, and Tim _nearly_ did, but there was something bothering him like an unscratched itch. They'd done it, checked off the box, met Gertrude, joined her side, and he had work first thing the next morning, he should be climbing into bed and collapsing, but he— he just _wasn't tired._

Tim found himself going back to the tunnels. 

Jon had the key to the Archives, but he'd also told Tim where all of the entrances in the streets around were. Tim was fairly certain that big monster boss wasn't watching him right now, but he was also fairly certain that he didn't care. He had a heavy torch, which he didn't bother to turn on because it didn't seem that dark, but he was pretty confident in his ability to beat something to death with it if it came to that. 

He knew immediately when he wasn't alone anymore, and unlike Jon, he didn't jump.

"So. Back already," Gerard said. "Thought it would take you at least a few weeks of denial and your Archivist trying to stop you. Although maybe he wanted one on staff, more like Gertrude than I'd thought."

"I honestly don't know what you're talking about," Tim said. 

"You're a little baby Hunter, balanced right on the edge," Gerard said. "Gonna do something about it?"

"What _do_ I do?" Tim asked.

Gerard pulled an apple with teeth out of his pocket. "You follow me, and we kill a fucking monster, brother."

#-------#

It took a bit longer than hoped to track down and rip Jan Novak from limb to limb, and work was still work, so Tim snuck in through the trapdoor of the tunnels the next morning like a mistress sneaking back in through her window in the same clothes with no sleep but frankly, not tired whatsoever.

The entire Archive staff were waiting for him.

"So. Hunt," Sasha said.

Jon looked determined. Martin looked sad. Sasha looked…Tim couldn't tell.

He decided to play it as nonchalantly as possible. "Okay so Jon clearly suspected since Prentiss and hasn't said anything because he wants me to get to 'make my own choices' but also thinks it'll keep me safer during the Unknowing and prefers me alive and monster to human and dead, Martin wanted to protect me from all the horrors of monsterhood and feeling like I had to become this to survive because it meant he wasn't enough to protect us, and sure, sure, I'll let you mother-hen me if it'll make you feel better but there was no way I want going to sit in the corner for all of this, but Sasha, what is the look on _your_ face?"

"I should have started a betting pool with these two idiots over when you would join the Hunt," Sasha said, as equally controlled and flippant. "From the moment you went 'hot goth boy' you were gone and I should have made bank from it and didn't."

Tim laughed. "Bet you I'll rip out Nikola's throat in under a minute, if that'll make you feel better."

"It won't because I know you will," she said, but she was smiling.

 _And then there was one,_ Tim thought. He wondered briefly if Sasha would get out of all of this still human, and decided that that was her business. All he needed was her — all of them — to get out of this _whole_.

#-------#

On Gertrude's recommendation, Jon began collecting statements relating to her notes. He 'uncovered' courtesy of her precise directions a room near the Archive entrance to the tunnels that included a number of statements she had been pulling together before and about the Unknowing, to begin listening and conducting his own follow-up. He sent Tim to fail to find Sarah Baldwin at the fake address she had provided Melanie. He 'started' making connections.

And then as per Gertrude's instructions, he went to Elias about it before Elias could come to him.

He chose mid-afternoon on a Tuesday, the time that Elias always saved for budget reviews, and so would be in his office with no meetings, no fear of interruption. He waved himself past Rosie's protests that she could schedule him a meeting tomorrow, saying that he only had a quick question, didn't need an official meeting, and he knocked on the door even though he knew Elias knew he was coming.

"Come in," Elias said.

"We should…talk," Jon said. "I've noticed some, uh, patterns, trying to organize the Archives."

"Do tell," Elias said.

"The— the statements that won't record digitally," Jon said. "I—"

"I had hoped you weren't still hung up over those," Elias said. "I approved your solution, I see no problems with how the Archives have been functioning."

" _I think they're all true,_ " Jon finished. "There are— you can even sort them into… categories, of a sort. Different fears that seem to be— _feeding_ on people, and monsters and cultists that— that work together to serve these… Entities. Gertrude knew about them, she was— trying to stop them."

"I'm surprised, Jon," Elias said. "I took you for a skeptic."

"And then _worms_ invaded my _Archives_ ," Jon said. "I listened to the tape. Prentiss said she was performing a ritual, and she— before you— before you saved my life, she seemed to— I think she was implying that there are _more_ of them."

"You have been through a traumatic event," Elias said. "Perhaps you should consider taking some of this up with a psychiatrist." 

"I believe that my predecessor knew what she was doing and took it upon herself to stop these Entities," the Archivist said coldly. " _Did you know about this?_ "

Elias looked at him very carefully. "Gertrude and I had an understanding where I did not interfere with her and she did not interfere with me."

Jon's shoulders slumped a bit, and he leaned forwards, equal parts apprehensive yet eager to please. "Is it... a part of the job description? Do you want me to pick up where she left off?"

"You should become your own Archivist," Elias said. "Gertrude Robinson was— well, I won't speak ill of the dead. The state she allowed the Archives to fall into speaks for itself."

"I— Elias, I— I think we're talking about things a bit bigger than just— than just Prentiss," Jon said. "Gertrude's… the tapes of hers that I've managed to find, they— I— I think most of these rituals are ending-the-world scale. If she was— if she was stopping them— _why don't you want me to too?_ "

"I suppose I did not expect you to be asking these questions so early," Elias said. "You must learn some things for yourself, Jon, or you won't…grow." He seemed hesitant. 

"You mean that this is all insane," Jon laughed. "I— I can barely believe that I am here, in your office, telling you that I genuinely believed any of our statement-givers. Besides the Leitners, I suppose. I— I wouldn't have believed you if you'd tried to tell me. What were you supposed to say? 'Oh, there are terrors beyond your imagining that are actively trying to end the world, and there's no one out there stopping them. Hope you sleep well.'"

"Have you been sleeping? Well, that is?" Elias asked.

"No," Jon said. "I have nightmares about the statements every night."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Jon," Elias said. He didn't look sorry at all.

"So what do I do?" Jon said. "I think— I think one of these powers, Gertrude calls it 'the Stranger', is close to performing their ritual, uh, 'the Unknowing.' It— it sounds bad."

"I'm not really sure," Elias said. "The only thing that Gertrude told me about what she was doing was the very detailed itemized expense reports she submitted. Do you think that you can? Stop it, that is?"

"We— we have leads," Jon said. "I'm— I'm learning more every day. The statements, the connections between them. I think Gertrude might have had a plan to stop it. if I can look deeply enough in the Archives I might find it."

"Alright," Elias said. "Keep me updated on your progress. And Jon?"

"Yes?"

"Be careful of who you involve. These are…delicate matters."

"Yes," Jon said. "Yes, of course. Th— thank you."

#-------#

On the 2nd of October, Helen Richardson arrived in his Archives. He was able to calm her down more quickly this time, ask for her statement directly.

"I don’t really know what else to tell you. I was hospitalized for a short while, until they were satisfied my dehydration wasn’t going to cause any complications. And I spent a long time at home. Not opening any doors," she finished. It was as heartbreaking as he'd originally remembered. "Finally, after the latest bout of nightmares, I decided to come to you and tell you my story. Maybe you can make some sense of this."

"I can," the Archivist said. "A single question to confirm, though. You wouldn't happen to remember the man's name, would you?"

"I…I think he told me, but I just— I—"

"It wasn't Michael, was it?" the Archivist said.

"Yes! _Michael_! That was it!" Helen said. "Do you know him?" And oh, that was a tone that would make a Hunter proud.

"I have not met him in person, although my Assistants have," Jon said. "My predecessor had a hand in his making, so naturally, I feel…responsible. There are both ways to protect yourself from it returning, and things that you can do if it does return. The most important of those is to _not be afraid of it._ "

"That's quite a lot for _you_ to say," Helen said. "Have you ever been in those corridors?" 

"I've encountered them before," the Archivist said. "Although they were under different management. The thing feeds on fear, specifically fear of madness. But it also exists in a very specific realm of…the more that you attempt for it to _make sense_ , the more that it gains strength from your ability to _not_. If you— treat it with a dream logic, if you… _one-up_ it, you— have you ever been able to lucid dream?"

"I…I usually don't remember dreams enough to know if I tried," Helen said. 

"No matter," the Archivist said. "You have a strong will. You escaped the corridors once. Most people do not escape. They will come back for you, especially if you are having— keep having— nightmares. Practice applying dream logic. Anything that the corridors try to throw at you, you throw right back at it. It is a manifestation of an Entity _Es Mentiras_ , It Is Lies, it is the single monster that you can defeat by _lying_ to yourself about exactly what it is and exactly what it does. In its place of power, your lies have more power than its truths as long as you believe your own lies more. So just lie any monsters pursuing you into…slipping around on roller skates they can't control, or something, and snap a mirror into existence to escape again."

"How do I destroy them?" Helen said.

"There's no destroying them," the Archivist said. "There's consuming their heart and _becoming_ them, but no destroying them." 

"New management," Helen breathed. She turned around and the yellow door was right there, the one that he hadn't been able to stop her from walking through the first time.

"Ms. Richardson, wait—" he tried to say, but she had already hurled herself through, and it disappeared the moment that it clicked closed. 

That…. that had _not_ gone as expected, that had not gone— they'd _planned_ for this, _planned_ to help her get away, _planned_ to talk to Michael about— about scaring but not _killing_ people, but she was—

And then the door opened and Elias was stepping in to his office. 

"Jon, I couldn't help but overhear the end of what you were saying to Ms. Richardson," the smug bastard said. He sat himself down in the chair Helen had been in just moments before. "Considering that she is not in this room, and she did not walk out past me, I must ask: did you just send her to her death?"

Jon was rather glad that the force of calm that had taken to possessing him in the presence of Elias did indeed descend, because otherwise, he would have punched the man right in the face, consequences be damned. Instead, he blinked up serenly. "I found some scattered notes on the old Archival Assistants and some of the steps that Gertrude took to prevent rituals. The current Distortion, Michael Shelley. She sacrificed him in a manner that crippled it, and made it what it is now, correct?"

"You probably know better than me if you read her notes, but I believe that is what she did, yes?" Elias said. The _bastard_ , if he would just drop his fucking know-nothing act—

"Well, it's just, I didn't get to _see_ that," Jon said. "It happened before my _time_. And then into my office walked someone practically begging to be told how to walk right back in to those halls and rip its heart out. _I want to know how monsters are made._ " He shuddered a bit, like a puppet loosened on strings, and outwardly seemed to return a bit more to himself, a bit more human. "How— how rituals are stopped. So I— so I can stop the Unknowing." 

"Fascinating," Elias said. "You think you'll be able to see it? In the Spiral?"

"See— what?" Jon said. "Of course not. We were friendly. She'll be back to give a statement, and then I'll _know_."

"You have quite the ambition, getting a statement from the Spiral," Elias said. He stood, and tucked the chair back to its usual position. 

"Well," Jon said. "Watch me."

"Oh, I will," Elias said. 

He was smiling as he left. Jon started shivering in full the moment he closed the door. His breath was coming— too fast? too slow? And he couldn't seem to _see_ anything.

"Hey. Hey, hey." It was Martin. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but Martin's voice was a lifeline he could cling to. "Shhh, shhh, you're okay. Do I need to kill him?"

"What if it— what if _that's_ me?" Jon said. "I— the real me. He asked me if I'd sent Helen to her death and I said I did because I was _curious_ how monsters were made and I— Martin, I could _feel_ it. Like I was—like I was telling the entire truth in that moment, and I— what if what I am to— to _him_ — isn't the act, what if everything else is the act and _I'm really that monster._ "

"That's not you," Martin said. "I know you, alright, and that's not you. And if it is, you pulled me back from the edge, you pulled Daisy back from the edge and you'll do it again, you've— you're pulling Tim back from the edge, out of destructive anger and into constructive _doing_ something about it here and now, and it— it goes both ways. We'll pull you back from the edge if you need us to."

"Right," Jon said, trying to put at least enough conviction in his voice for Martin to believe him. The Tim bit especially stung. Should he have tried to put in more effort stopping Tim? "Together."

#-------#

"How's Grandma?" Tim asked as Gerry tossed him the apple.

"Unruffled as always," Gerry said. "She loves being back in the game. Not to say it wasn't a different sort of fun recording your conversations, moving things around your Archives, but she likes being back in charge again. So, what do you smell?"

"North?" Tim said. "Far though. Few hour's drive at least."

"We are packed for a 'weekend camping trip'," Gerry said. 

"I suppose you also packed the music?" Tim said.

"Always," Gerry said. "I'll let you drive this time, though. Your turn to track."

Tim took a deep breath, felt the night air settle around him. It wasn't even a _scent_ so much as an itch in the back of his mind, driving him forward, and he knew how to follow it.

"Alright, windows open, let's go," Tim said.

(Gerry waited until they well out of the distracting twinkle of lights and surrounded just by the wind of the motorway as Tim almost certainly broke a number of traffic laws speeding towards his prey to begin blasting his music. It would never drown out the music of the Hunt, not for either of them, but it did provide a nice pulse in the backdrop, their own screaming heart.)

#-------#

On Monday, Jon unearthed the statement of Sebastian Skinner regarding the plumbing job he performed for the Stranger in Gwydir forest. He listened to it. And then he proceeded to have a very snappy morning which tested everyone's patience, because _Jude Perry was missing from the statement._

There had been no second woman watching the next day, Skinner had escaped unscathed, and there had been no forest fire. Skinner had reported possible human remains and neither he nor the police had been able to find the compound, and the statement ended at that.

He tried very, _very_ hard not to take it out too much on his Assistants, especially since Elias's eyes were sharp on all of them — Tim especially — since they came in, which meant that they didn't have any opportunity to properly _talk_. It was almost a relief when Rosie came to summon Jon for a quick unofficial departmental performance review. The usual calm settled over him as he made his way to Elias's office, a sharp contrast to the frenzied panic in the Archives.

"You wanted to see me?" Jon asked.

"Yes, Jon, sit down," Elias said. "I will be direct with you. Do you know that one of your Archival Assistants is falling to the Hunt?"

Jon nearly did a double-take. Elias must have been truly unbalanced by it to indeed be _that_ direct. 

"Who, Tim?" the Archivist said. "Well, yes. I haven't quite been encouraging him, but I certainly haven't been discouraging him either. There is a consistent thread throughout the statements of Hunters being able to hinder and sometimes even destroy other full-blown Avatars. We found a statement on an attempt of the Unknowing in 1787, and from it Gertrude believed that the ritual itself can only be stopped when the Dance has begun. An Avatar of the Slaughter disrupted it the first time. I've been looking into them, but I haven't quite figured out where I might _find_ one, or convince it to cooperate. Which left the hope that a Hunter might be an acceptable replacement, in terms of concentrated violence. The second officer who saw me — Detective Tonner, I believe — seems likely to be one, but I wasn't sure if she would be amiable to assisting us. The one that we found living feral in the tunnels — I believe that is who Tim has been Hunting with — is… unreliable on principle. Timothy is certainly developing very well, which takes care of the majority of our preparations for _stopping_ the Unknowing and allows us to concentrate on _finding_ it. And, well… I thought having one on staff might be nice, if encounters like Prentiss and the Unknowing are to become the norm."

"You want a Hunter on staff to stop rituals?" Elias asked.

"I want one on staff because I'm _curious_ what a Hunter would do in any number of situations," the Archivist said. "If it so happens to be useful and provides Tim with some form of emotional catharsis, well, all for the better, but— isn't it just too _interesting_ to have a real live monster here? When will I have another chance to observe the Hunt so closely? I suppose one might Hunt me one day, but this was a chance to see it now."

"You're not worried what will happen?" Elias asked.

"I'm _terrified_ ," the Archivist said. "And that makes it all the better."

"I don't know whether to be thrilled or scared for you," Elias said.

The Archivist shrugged. "We are all more likely to survive the Unknowing this way. Tim has a grudge, he's fixated. From what I've gathered, once they have a target in mind, Hunters don't change their fixation. The entire Archive staff is committed to stopping the Unknowing, of course. But afterwards, we should _talk._ "

"Why?" Elias asked.

"These rituals seems fairly common," the Archivist said. "Or at least— there is a fair amount of evidence of worshippers of nearly every Entity attempting them, over the years. And this Institute— it isn't just a place for instances of the supernatural to be collected and researched, is it? We serve the Beholding here, don't we?"

"Yes…" Elias said. He was looking at Jon very, _very_ carefully now.

Jon met his gaze without faltering.

"So _why haven't we tried one_?"

#-------#

"He's taking a long time," Martin said. "I'm— this was a bad plan."

"It's a fine plan," Sasha said. "Jon was perfectly happy volunteering, and we need something to ensure that the boss stays at the Institute instead of disappearing like he'd originally planned. And we don't _have_ a convenient body to frame him for the murder of."

"There's Not-Gertrude," Martin said.

"And next to no evidence, not a tape like last time," Sasha said. "We've gone over it, Martin, this is the safest way."

"I don't like it," Martin said. "What if Elias sees through him?"

"I really don't think that's a problem," Sasha said. "Have you noticed that he seems like he can really _handle_ himself every time he's put in a position where you'd worry he'd be in hot water with Elias?"

Martin looked down a bit uncomfortably.

"I'm just saying, it might not be him lying to Elias that we have to worry about," she finished.

Tim laughed. "Are you saying what— ?"

"I just think it's time to start thinking about, uh, whether or not Jon goes Frodo in the end," Sasha said.

The fog around them dropped ten degrees in temperature. "Are you saying you want a plan in place to kill him?" Martin said.

"Hush, Sam," Sasha said. "Just saying a plan in place to bite off the finger, so to speak."

"I'm in," Tim said immediately. 

"Yeah, you're murderous now," Sasha said. "Non-humans don't get a vote."

"That, uh, that means that you're the only person in this room who gets a vote?" said a slightly calmer Martin.

"Keep up boys." Sasha grinned. "It's better that way."

#-------#

"I don't quite understand what you're saying, Jon," Elias said. "Are you saying that you think we should be trying a ritual?"

"I— I mean I care about not ending the world," Jon said, a smooth external transition from the stone-carved face of a monster to something a bit more human not even surprising him at this point. "I know I should care."

"It sounds like there's a _but_ ," Elias said.

"But I'm just so _curious_!" he burst out. "We— we know, we've been collecting, what the world _is_. And I know I'm not done categorizing it, experiencing it, and I need to— I need to know everything and I _will_ , but I only have access to what _is_ , not what _could be_ , and I want— I want _more_. I want to see all of the Fears _fully_ , not just diluted and secondhand in statements, I want to Watch everything, I want— I need to _know_. That's all a ritual would do, right? We're— we're not the Desolation, or the Slaughter, or the Stranger, or the End, or— it doesn't _need_ to be a ruined world that no one else can live in, dominated by a single fear such that nothing that we could recognize remains. We'd— we could do it _better_. So there's still a world. I just want to _know_."

He felt actually pinned in place by Elias's gaze; it tore into him, seeking the truth from him.

"…Interesting," Elias said. "I didn't expect this from you."

And suddenly Jon seemed right back to the confused, naive Researcher that Elias had appointed Head Archivist exactly for how poorly he'd take this. "I— sorry, sorry, I— I don't know what's come over me," he said. "It's— it's just stress about the Unknowing, I'm sure. The rituals are shrouded in so much— well, I'll just— I'm curious but it's not _that_ bad. I can be there and witness the Unknowing and stop it and I'm sure it'll— I'll— be fine."

"Yes, concentrate on the Unknowing for now," Elias said. "You've given me a lot to think about."

#-------#

Jon was rather glad of the autopilot as he made his was back to Archives, as he wasn't quite sure he would have managed the way down on his own.

"Jon!" Martin said. "Are— are you alright?"

Jon made the 'we're being watched' motion. "I just need to get more research done," he said. 

Fifteen minutes later, Martin was in his office with tea and the comforting lap of the Lonely around his ankles. 

"Alright, how are you really doing?" Martin said.

"Elias fell for it hook, line, and sinker," Jon said. "It's like I— it doesn't matter. I— I can't control that. Sebastian Skinner's statement. It's wrong and I need to know why. The Desolation and the Stranger are— if Jude Perry is running around loose— if _someone else has read the book_ — we need to _know._ " He met Marin's eyes. "I need to ask Gertrude. I've texted them. I'm going to the tunnels tonight."

"Alright, I'll tell the others," Marin said.

"Alone," Jon said.

"No?" Martin said. "You still faint every time we go down there. Right, which Sasha has an idea why, you don't eat enough human sustenance and you don't really sleep much, she thinks that when you're somewhere that all the influences but the human ones are left…"

"I collapse," Jon said. "Great. Glad to hear that I'm keeping it together that well."

"You're upset but we're here for you," Martin said. "We'll _all_ go."

#-------#

The thing about working with monsters — getting _friendly_ with monsters — was the sometimes, you could forget that they were monsters.

Which was exactly why Jonathan Sims reacted so poorly when he learned that Agnes Montague was alive and stowed in Gertrude's little metal stove-heater.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the second set of secrets I've been screaming internally about, you didn't think there was just ONE ridiculous past-future-foreknowledge survival twist in this fic, _did_ you? 
> 
> (actually that's pretty much everyone in terms of surprise being alive reveals, as you might have been able to tell from the tagged characters; you can thank [@ mostly-incorrect-tgs-quotes](https://mostly-incorrect-tgs-quotes.tumblr.com/) for specifically requesting Agnes content when I was in the planning stages of this fic.)
> 
> feel free to come scream at me as always on tumblr [@ savrenim](https://savrenim.tumblr.com/)


	5. how quickly the glamour fades

" _Why. Is. Agnes. Montague. In. Your. Stove._ "

The first question that Jon had asked — "Why was Jude Perry not in the Skinner statement?" — had a relatively straightforward answer. "Oh, we wiped out the entire Cult of the Lightless Flame back when they tried to kill Agnes. No reason to leave them running around causing trouble when we knew where they would be and when they would be distracted."

And Jon could have left it at that, he really could have, but the wording — tried to kill — well, that seemed to imply that it failed, didn't it?

So the next question, "Is Agnes still alive?", had seemed like a reasonable progression.

"She's fine. She's in a coma, we couldn't leave her walking around, but it's not like that's hurting her." 

A little bit worrisome. So, of course, "Where is she?"

And then Gerry had pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the stove. "In there. Makes a very good space heater!"

Bringing Jon to: 

" _Why. Is. Agnes. Montague. In. Your. Stove._ "

"Well, it wasn't like we could get the gas lines to run to this room safely, and I didn't want to haul in a portable generator," Gerry said. "Gets chilly in the winter. Besides, tunnels are the best place to hide something from the Eye."

"There's a _girl_ in your _stove_!"

"You get used to it, mate."

Jon wheeled on Gertrude. "And you? Do _you_ have anything to say about this? Are you _saving_ her for something?"

"Not particularly," Gertrude said. 

"Then _why didn't you let her die too?_ " Jon asked.

"Mm, I see what you mean, I could feel that," Gertrude said. "That is worrisome."

" _Answer. My. Question._ "

"Her death would weaken me," Gertrude said. "The ritual that connected us goes both ways. I thought about it for a while, I knew I would almost fully recover, but I came to the conclusion that I'm mortal and I could use every advantage I can get, it wasn't worth throwing this one away. If we weren't killing her, the next step would be to keep her bound — there's a binding ritual inscribed in the box — and hidden, hence the placement in the tunnels. The usefulness as a stove and heater was something Gerard discovered."

"That's— you understand how _inhumane_ that is, though?" Jon said.

"She's not human," Gertrude said. "She's an Avatar of the Desolation."

" _And she didn't want to be!_ " Jon said. "She didn't have a choice! And when she did, she chose _life_! You don't— you can't condemn her on so little!"

"Is that a risk you're willing to take?" Gertrude asked.

The correct answer would have probably been to have taken a deep breath, and remembered that Gertrude was the most effective…well, not Archivist, but Avatar-thwarter that perhaps the planet had ever seen, and that Jon had caused the apocalypse. 

That he'd nearly killed himself and an unknown other number of others when he'd felt similarly _upset_ and decided to take an axe to the Web table in Artefact Storage thinking it would kill NotSasha, only to release the NotThem.

Jon didn't consider any of that.

"Yes," he said, and had enough forethought to at least cover his hand with the hem of his jumper before he flung the top of the stove off.

It clanked down to the ground with an ominous, deafening ring. 

Agnes was curled inside in a fetal position. Her long, auburn hair was brushed back and tied neatly at the nape of her neck. She was in simple clothing, a loose jersey and leggings, like she was going out for a jog. She looked…peaceful. Asleep. 

Jon knew better not to try to poke her awake. _Barely_ , but he knew better. 

Still, she started stirring slightly: the wrinkling of her nose at first, then a little sneeze, then she started slowly blinking herself awake. 

The temperature of the room ticked up a degree.

"Oh, bollocks," Jon said.

"Well, now that the Messiah of the Desolation has just become _your_ problem, I'm very curious what you intend to do with her," Gertrude said. "Are you planning on letting her loose in the world? Are you ready to take responsibility for any deaths she causes, or do you wash your hands of it at that? Or will you take her to your own flat, or send her home with one of your assistants? Put your own homes and neighbors at risk?"

"N—no— I mean I would't— I mean—" Jon said.

"That wouldn't help, Elias is watching us too closely," Sasha said. "Especially now that he's trying to ascertain whether or not you were telling the truth about _wanting_ to do a Beholding ritual. He'd notice immediately."

"Right," Jon said. He tried very hard not to sound too relieved, or to think about what that meant.

"Why are you still looking at me?" Sasha asked.

"I suppose I'm…waiting for you to come up with a genius idea and save the day?" Jon said.

"When you put it like that," Sasha grinned. "Georgie. I bet Georgie would take her."

"What?!"

"We've been trying to figure out how to get her involved— if we should get her involved at all— ever since it became obvious that there was not a murder to pin to you," Sasha said. "She's our current closest connection to Melanie, who is still in danger of becoming Slaughter-touched, and she's… she's been touched by the End, right? The Desolation can't burn the End, it's the _End_ , it's all-encompassing and already nothing so fire doesn't hurt it. She took you in when you were accused of murder and showed up on her doorstep after how many years? I bet she'd give Agnes a place to stay, if you asked, at least until Agnes adjusts."

"That…that tracks, I think," Jon said. "With the Desolation and the End." He'd been paying almost as much attention in Gertrude's lectures on which Entities countered that Sasha had. He remembered that one. It wasn't— that wouldn't make it _safe_ for Georgie, not by any means, but he could not shake the feeling — the _truth_ — that Agnes was no threat whatsoever, and there was no need to treat her like one.

"Are you doing this, or what?" Gerry said. "Tim and I were going to go vampire-hunting, there's a coven in West Sussex we were going to _take care_ of."

"We're doing this," Jon said more firmly.

"Do you have a backup plan if she starts rampaging the moment she gets out of the tunnels?" Gertrude said. 

"Martin could try to use the Lonely?" Sasha said. "It's hard to burn fog."

" _Very_ good," Gertrude said.

"Is it what you would have suggested?" Sasha asked.

"No. I would have kept her in the box," Gertrude said.

"The Unknowing—" Sasha said.

"Is no real threat and you know it," Gertrude said. "Not to mention that involving Agnes in it — even if she cooperated in a fully controlled manner — would alert Elias to the fact that she is still around and allied to you, and furthermore, had become so completely under his nose. Do _not_ ever attempt to convince yourself that a personal decision is tactical, even when there might be tactical applications. Make personal decisions if you need to, but do not lie to yourself about why you are making them."

Sasha blinked a few times, and took a deep breath. Jon was reminded that maybe he wasn't the only person feeling the pressure to live up to Gertrude anymore, and Sasha hadn't even gotten as much of a raise as him for this entire mess they were all in. "Right. Well. Personal decision has been made, time to make the best of it?" he said. 

"Here." Gerry tossed a blanket at Tim. "Carry her, and text me when you're done, I want to get my beauty sleep if we're not having a nice evening with the bloodsuckers."

Tim sighed, and moved to pick Agnes up. "I feel like ever since I went Hunt the rest of you have just been treating me as the pack mule," he said. "I know Jon is and always will be a twig, but isn't Martin supernaturally strong too? When is it his turn?"

"He's on concealment duty," Sasha said, whacking him on the shoulder, and Martin carefully reached out to grasp the fog that always existed on the other side of his breath. Elias would be watching the spots where they'd last disappeared, so they'd have to do this very, very carefully. 

But Agnes seemed to settle in Tim's arms just fine. Neither Gertrude nor Gerry made any move to stop them. Elias had no direct trace on them, and didn't know that Georgie was someone Jon might even _think_ of contacting. They could do this. They _had_ to do this.

If he had to put it into words, Jon would stumble through an attempt to say that had to be his own Archivist, not Elias's, but also not Gertrude's, if he ever wanted a place in the world he was saving. He couldn't be more thankful that his friends, at least, seemed to understand that without him saying it.

#-------#

"Martin, could you let up on the fog a bit? It's hard to get a signal," Jon said. They were out of the tunnels and headed towards the tube, as they didn't want to risk moving a car being noticed.

"Right." The swirling white around them settled a bit lower, and Jon hastily typed out a quick, vague message to Georgie on his burner phone.

"Did you just text her?" Sasha asked.

"Yes?" Jon said.

"You don't think this at least deserves a phone call?" Sasha said.

"I— we should— we should explain the situation to Agnes first?" Jon tried.

"You're just trying to avoid calling Georgie," Sasha said. "Agnes is—"

"I—"

Agnes looked up sleepily. "Are you talking about me?"

Tim carefully let her down. "Hey, kiddo, what's the last thing you remember?"

"You do know that she's, like, nearly seventy now," Jon said. "You don't just get to. Say that. Because you think it makes you sound cool. It's _inaccurate_ and _condescending_ and—"

"She's had a hard life, and doesn't sound like she did very much living so much as existing, she gets to be a kiddo," Tim said. 

"Tim! _Rude_!" Sasha said, whacking him on the shoulder again.

Agnes cleared her throat. "I— the tree fell down— I needed them to hang me, the noose was around my neck, I was going to return to the Desolation."

Everyone looked at each other.

"So, um—" Martin said.

"My anchor stopped it, didn't she?" Agnes said.

"Why…would you say that?" Martin asked.

"It was all that they would ever talk about," Agnes said. "Any time anything went wrong. It was always her."

"Right, well, to rip the bandage," Jon said. "Gertrude took advantage of their attempt to kill you and killed all of them, and you've been bound and stored in the tunnels beneath the Magnus Institute for a decade."

"Jon!" Sasha said.

"Sorry!" Jon said. "It's just late and cold and—" the air heated up. "Oh. Um. Thanks. Assuming you're doing this on purpose and not about to explode. But there's no nice way to do this."

"Who are all of you?" Agnes asked.

"New Archivist," Tim said, thumbing towards Jon. "So being a prick is a bit in the job description. Lonely Assistant, Hunter Assistant, human assistant. We're running things a bit differently than the old administration, and we wanted to know what your plans were."

"I…I'm not sure," Agnes said.

"Well that's not 'I want to burn down the world', so that's kind of what we were hoping to hear," Tim said. "Jon has a friend you can stay with while you figure the rest out. She's touched by the End so you won't accidentally hurt her if you brush into her."

"That…that sounds really nice, actually," Agnes said. 

"Great!" Tim said. "Jon?"

"She replied, she's expecting us," Jon said.

"So it's settled and I might still get my evening of fun?" Tim said. "Fantastic. Outward and onward!"

#-------#

"For god's sake, Jon, when you said you needed to see me and it was urgent this was not what I expected," Georgie said. "For one, I was only expecting you."

"I'm sorry, I couldn't…." Jon said.

Georgie pointedly looked towards Agnes, who was asleep on her couch. "No. Let me get this straight. This is some…second cousin of yours, and I will not insult you by saying you've never mentioned an extended family that was…" And Jon didn't need her to finish: hazel-eyed, red-haired, and so very, very _pale_? No. No he didn't. Jon probably should have thought of a better lie than 'cousin', hastily corrected to 'second…cousin', but he'd been so caught up in Fear dynamics that he hadn't realized 'we're both channels of intricately related extradimensional pools of terror' didn't translate to 'we are two humans who look related to each other to other humans.' 

"Who is in a spot of trouble," Georgie continued. "And she can't stay at your flat, and also you couldn't have mentioned any of this over text, because your boss is stalking you?"

"That is technically all true," Jon said. 

"What is really going on, Jon?" she asked.

"You would not believe me, and right now Agnes needs somewhere safe to stay while I figure out how to deal with the potentially massive consequences of…of some choices I've made," Jon said. "I— I can't get out of…what I'm involved in…but this might be her one chance to."

"I'm not kicking her out," Georgie said. "She flinches any time it looks like someone is going to touch her, I know the signs, Jon. Although you're starting to make me worried for _you_."

"What kind of tea does everyone want?" came Martin's voice, muffled a bit from two rooms over.

"Mint is fine!" Georgie called back. She turned to Jon. "Also, why are your archival assistants here?"

"To make sure I don't massively fuck this all up?" Jon said.

"As you deliver your 'second cousin' safely from your stalker boss."

Sasha walked into the room with two steaming cups of tea, handing one off to Georgie. "Oh, that's actually a pretty good way of putting it."

"It's not true," Georgie said.

"It's _metaphorically_ true," Sasha said. "Agnes and Jon are…spiritually related. Second cousins is a very good way of putting it. Agnes got out because everyone thinks she's dead. Jon's boss is aggressively watching his every move, and can see out of everything that has eyes if he wants to pay attention, so either cover those up in your home or don't, if you don't care. So long as Jon doesn't contact you, there's not much reason to draw his attention."

"Sasha!" Jon said. 

"Oh, ripping the bandage off is only fun when you get to do it?" Sasha said. "How long do you think it would have taken Georgie to notice that Agnes could heat up tea with her hands? Or what to do in case of Agnes going out of control? The plan was to tell her everything."

"You never said that."

"I thought it was _obvious_."

"I have had," Jon said. "A _very_. long day. And you know that the tunnels are hard on me."

Sasha did not look particularly impressed. "Alright, Georgie, if you would suspend disbelief for one minute. Monsters and ghosts and supernatural occurrences are real, or at least, the real ones are fueled by this giant amorphous mass of terror that exists outside our dimension and is pushing to get in. We divide and categorize it into fourteen general themes, or _Entities_ , most of which have their own cults serving them. Agnes was associated with the Desolation — kind of self-explanatory — but she didn't ask for it, she was just kind of born that way. She has some fire-related powers, but she's never really wanted to hurt anyone. Now that the rest of her cult has been taken care of, and she is presumed dead, she doesn't really know what to do with herself, and we wanted to give her the chance to actually think of that answer herself instead of someone else deciding for her, you know? Jon is in the service of another — Beholding, the fear of being watched and known. His boss is attempting to groom him into the central component of a world-ending ritual, and unfortunately, is an incredibly dangerous man who has been alive for a very long time and is a lot stronger than any of us. We're biding our time and trying to get the jump on him, and our plan is pretty stable. Jon just…refused to leave Agnes to her fate without regards to how it might impact the fate of the world, so we're improvising." 

"Is it strange that I actually find all of that more believable than your attempt at an explanation, Jon?" Georgie asked.

Tim entered the room with his own mug of tea, Martin behind him. "Not at all, Jon is a complete crap liar and it is a miracle this conspiracy has lasted this long. He meant to keep it all to himself, you know? It took Martin, what, literally a week to figure it out?"

"Everyone stop bullying Jon," Martin said, handing Jon his mug. "He's had a long day."

"So," Jon said. "Um. Supernatural forces. Any questions?"

"Am I in danger right now?" Georgie asked. She didn't look particularly scared, but Jon knew better now: Georgie would never feel fear again in her life.

"You're, um. The…encounter. At Balliol. Sorry. Sorry, I _know_ I shouldn't know this but I do, I—"

"Serve the Knowledge god," Georgie said.

"Right. Well. _That_ gave you, um, at least we— expect, um, this isn't quite an exact science, but— well, fire can't burn Death. So you should have some immunity to Agnes's…particularities." 

"Is my house immune?" Georgie asked.

"She'd—she'd have to be trying on purpose to set something on fire," Jon said. "It's kind of— it's a fear thing. Same with the Admiral. He should be fine, although if you're worried I'd be more than happy to take him—"

"You are _not_ taking my cat, Jon," Georgie said.

"Right," Jon said.

An uncomfortable silence descended. He could _feel_ the tension building up, waiting for someone, something, to snap— 

"Sorry, this was a bad idea," Sasha said. "Too much to ask and too soon. I have a…friend who might be able to take her. I…probably should have brought it up a bit ago, I just got really caught up in checking the Desolation with the End that I didn't think of her. But 'getting too attached to cleverness at the expense of practicality' is the easiest way to write your own— Gertrude always— I'm not— I'm sorry. We can leave."

"Would it be any safer for your friend?" Georgie asked.

"Maybe? She— she doesn't have immunity like you, but she's not…helpless," Sasha said. "She doesn't really— she works from home, so there would be, uh…. constant supervision. But there are also a lot of college and uni students, uh, living in the same building?"

"That sounds less than ideal," Jon said.

"I— I'm saying we have options," Sasha said.

"I never said I wouldn't take her," Georgie said. "I'm thinking. How did all of you learn all of this?"

"We read a book that let us know the future," Sasha said. "Well, not me. But the other three did."

"I want to read the book," Georgie said.

"It's…it's not a nice future," Jon said. "It's…I know that you're….that you're not _scared_. But you still _feel_ and you _will_ traumatize yourself—"

"You don't get to make that call for me," Georgie said.

"Well we didn't bring the book," Jon said.

"Actually, we did," Sasha said. "Gertrude and I both agreed that it…that it would be safer back when we were talking about— possibilities of _involvement_ , before, to at least offer Georgie the chance, or proof if she didn't believe us. We, um, also have a theory about— well, it's not important."

"I think it might be important," Georgie said. "There seem to be a lot of important things that aren't getting said right now, and I want the ones that affect me to be said."

"Everyone who's read the book has become an Avatar of sorts," Sasha said. "Gertrude since gave hers up, but…Gerard, Martin, Tim, Jon. And they seem to be playing by slightly different rules. Martin doesn't need to feed on anything at all. Tim and Gerard—"

"Me and Gerry are hunting down things that go bump in the night and taking care of them, which is pretty standard for the Hunt," Tim said. " _However_ , we do it with a much cooler soundtrack. Real glow up. And I guess Jon now actively tries to make people feel better when they're scared because it makes him feel better too, but that one might just be the apocalypse taught him basic human empathy."

"Tim!" Sasha said. "Can we not joke about this? It's— Georgie, you might be giving up your humanity entirely if you read the book."

Georgie looked around the room, meeting everyone's gazes by turn. Jon flinched and looked away. No one else did.

"I'll do it," she said.

#-------#

Thus it was with surprisingly little fanfare that Georgie Barker became an Avatar of the End. There wasn't any sort of outward signal, any sign that anyone else could sense, but Jon _knew._ Death had touched Georgie and when Georgie read that book, she touched it right back, and now she was something that…that was beyond his knowledge.

Or rather, the knowledge that he could access _now_. 

"I'm astonished you'd come here after what you did to Melanie," Georgie said, putting the book down.

"I am _trying_ —" Jon said. "I am _trying harder than anything_ to prevent that, she will never work at the Institute, it doesn't matter if I'm— Sasha and the others will stop her, she won't be trapped again, she won't get _hurt_ again."

"But you will," Georgie said.

"Of course I will," Jon said. "I'll probably even die. It doesn't terribly matter. I'll get better. All pain kind of…tastes the same, eventually. I'm used to it. It's a necessary part of the game."

"Jon," she said softly. "That wasn't an endorsement." 

"Right. Well," Jon said. "I've— got my friends. And I heal quickly. I'll be fine. You can— keep Agnes safely?"

"I will," Georgie said.

"Is—" Jon looked down. "Is Melanie okay? Did she— did she contact you? I— I didn't have the chance to _tell_ her what was going on or what Sarah Baldwin was, but I— I got her research passes to our library and I— I'd hoped I was… _kinder_ , in— in taking her statement, and I told her that you were a good person to trust to talk to about these things."

"Oh, I suppose—yes, we've been…closer," Georgie said. "I think she has a right to the book too, if she wants it."

"She's not— you can't just…stop her? In December? That would stop— disrupt at least— everything. For her."

"I'll certainly stop her from going alone," Georgie said. 

"Right. Right, that's— right," Jon said. "Best I could ask for."

"Hate to be the one to do this, but I _do_ have plans," Tim said. "And we need to go all the way back to the Institute and into the tunnels so we can appear _out_ of the tunnels where Jinksies Malevolent is expecting us. The tube stops running in, like, thirty minutes."

"Off with you all, then," Georgie said. "I'd say come and visit, but…"

"He keeps less of an eye on us than he does on Jon," Sasha said. "I'll…I'll come around a few times, if you don't mind. Make sure that Agnes is adjusting well. Keep you updated on our plans."

"Be well, all of you," Georgie said, but her eyes were fixed on Jon.

He nodded jerkily. "You too."

And they left Agnes there, sleeping on that couch; and left Georgie there, gathering empty mugs.

He prayed to whatever gods weren't listening that they'd done the right thing.

#-------#

"You're looking a bit pale," Tim whispered to Sasha as the fog rolled off them all and they began to stumble their separate ways. It was well past midnight, so the tube was closed, but they'd planned for it before entering the tunnels. Martin was driving Jon in and old, puttering thing that looked like it would fall to pieces if one closed a door a bit too vigorously, and Tim had borrowed Gerry's hunting hatchback, which would be plenty easy to return later that evening as neither of them were quite willing to give up their plans, not now that they had a scent.

"The whole situation was just…" Sasha wrung her hands. "It was a mess from start to finish and I'm— the number of times when I thought that it would be easier if— I'm trying to figure out if I would ever be that…ruthless."

Tim shrugged. "It's learned. You fixed this one, didn't you?"

"Yeah," she said. "Just realizing that I might not actually want to be Gertrude 2.0."

"Need me to come home with you?" Tim asked, without a second of hesitation. "I know I'm all sharp and monstery now, but I'm still a friend, and sometimes it's nice to not be alone. Unless you want me there in a non-friend capacity. I'm down for that too."

" _Tim_ ," Sasha said. "I actually, um, I'm good. I've got…plans. Probably."

"Probably? What is that supposed to mean?"

Sasha was silent.

"Sasha, did you give your not-a-boyfriend a key to your apartment?" Tim gasped. 

"I— they have blanket permission come through the door, yes," Sasha said. 

"Sasha, you can't leave me hanging like that!" Tim said.

"I want to…figure this one out for myself," Sasha said. "And I love you dearly, I really do, but navigating transitioning from a series of one-night stands to an actual relationship is not something that you have any sense for, and I…I don't want to mess it up." She wrinkled her nose, like she was surprising herself. "I really, _really_ don't. And also, they're my friend. I can— I can do this."

"I'll Hunt them down if they break your heart?" Tim said. 

"Yeah, yeah," Sasha said. "You can drop me at the corner, go kill some vampires, and _don't_ mention it tomorrow morning."

"My lips are sealed!" Tim said. "Won't even blackmail you over it, cross my heart."

"Thank you, Tim," Sasha said. "You really are a good friend."

"D'you think Jon would like it if I brought back, like, a decapitated vampire head?" Tim said abruptly. "We just learned that he likes cats, you _saw_ how he was with Georgie's cat. Cats do that."

"Probably not," Sasha said. "It would be really funny, though."

"Do you think double-boss would give me a bonus if I submitted it to Artefact Storage?" Tim said. 

"Tim, if you leave a decapitated vampire head on Elias's desk I will— I will give you whatever bonus he refuses to," Sasha said. "I'm pretty sure the entire Archives will, we'll— we'll start a GoFundMe."

"I mean, if I do it often enough, Elias might pay me to stop," Tim said.

"'Buy my silence permanently?'" Sasha asked. 

"For a raise of— fuck, I don't know the conversion — for a raise of £8000 a month, I will stop," Tim said, stopping the car.

Sasha got out. "Bye, Tim," she said fondly. "Have fun. Get some monsters."

"You too!" Tim said. "The get some bit. Maybe a bit light on the monsters."

Sasha laughed. "What even are our lives, now."

"I dunno," Tim said. "But I think I kind of like it."

#-------#

Jon was noticeably tired the next morning; he even accepted it when Sasha handed him a coffee instead of his usual tea. She seemed perfectly chipper, like she'd slept a full ten hours at least, which wasn't _fair_ , her commute was longer than his, especially if she'd stopped to pick up the whole office coffee—

But Elias summoned him before he could stew in Sasha-related jealousy for particularly long.

"I'll make this brief, Jon, I don't want to keep you from your Archives," he said. "I don't want you going into the tunnels anymore. I'm worried that it is…splitting your focus."

"Alright," Jon said.

Elias looked genuinely taken aback. "I…I didn't expect you to agree so readily."

"I mean I'd— I'd like to keep my key," Jon said. "Tim likes it down there. I think it might be a Hunt thing, he wants a… _lair._ I've told him to keep anything illegal off Institute property but the police, well. They didn't seem to like the tunnels much before."

"Are you planning on continuing to explore them and then just trying to _lie_ to me about it?" Elias asked.

It was Jon's turn to look perfectly confused. "No, we're— we're working together, right? To stop the Unknowing. You're— sometimes it feels like you know a lot, _lot_ more than me." His voice crackled with a bit of static. " _And I will Know All, one day._ " The static faded. "But it's not— there's a lot to do and very little time and I'm very new at this. I'm perfectly happy to accept guidance from a superior. If you say the tunnels aren't important, I won't— I won't promise to never go back. But I'll set them aside, until after the Unknowing." 

Elias just stared at him.

"Am I— am I doing something wrong?" Jon said.

"No, just… _cooperation_ is a very rare currency indeed in this line of work," Elias said. "It doesn't get spent for nothing." 

"I could…stop?" Jon said. 

"I'd rather you didn't," Elias said. "We _are_ dealing with world-ending stakes. It's just a… pleasant surprise, to be able to work with someone."

"Right," Jon said. "I'll, um, get back to work then?"

"Mm," Elias said. "Send up your assistants, starting with Tim. I think it's about time — _past_ time, really — for their yearly performance reviews."

#-------#

"So." Tim leaned back in his chair, and picked up one foot as if to kick it back on Elias's desk.

"Timothy, _please_ ," Elias said. There was enough of a threat that Tim actually lowered his legs back into a normal sitting position.

"Fine," Tim said. "Performance review?"

"You've been in the Archives for over a year now," Elias said. "Traditionally we're do it at the one-year mark, but things were a little bit hectic with the…situation."

"You mean the Avatar of the evil fear entity of Gross Stuff that we murdered," Tim said. "Yeah, I feel that."

"I would like to hear from you first how you think your work at the Archives has been," Elias said. "Then we can discuss feedback, goals, and salary."

"Let's see, I took one for the team and became a monster so that we could shut down a clown apocalypse," Tim said. "Oh, right, also, I have— "

"Timothy Stoker, if you pull that vampire head out of your bag I will trap you in loop of your worst memory, don't think I don't know," Elias said.

Tim grinned. "Wondered how long it was going to take you to admitting you were a monster too. So. We were talking, what, salary? I'm a monster who kills monsters. Convince me again why I don't want to kill you?"

"If you kill me, every employee of the Institute will die, including you," Elias said.

"Unfortunate," Tim said. "I do want to kill those clown fuckers first. Alright, guess you're safe, double boss. If you're not going to give me a raise, I don't think we have anything else left to talk about. I like Jon, not you."

"Right," Elias said. He paused, as if contemplating something, and Tim raised an eyebrow. "If you would like, you can submit the teeth to Artefact Storage, and you will receive a finder's bonus. Do _not_ extract them in my Institute, though."

"Sure thing, double boss!"

Elias muttered something that sounded like 'I will regret this' under his breath, then, "Send in Sasha on your way down."

#-------#

"Sasha, thank you for coming. I thought that we could start this meeting with any reflections you had on your time in the Archives and your own performance there, then we could discuss feedback, goals, and salary," Elias said.

"Right," Sasha said. "I— I've been meaning to do this for a while, and it's always felt like a bad time. I would like to respectfully quit."

"Oh?" Elias said. "Might I enquire your reasons?"

"First of all, I'm an academic," Sasha said. "I signed up for research. Not— eldritch gods and apocalypses and all of the deeply heroic nonsense that the rest of the Archives seems determined to throw themselves into. I'm not equipped for it and I do not like the direction that the rest of the department seems to be going. But this has been a long time coming, I decided over a year ago. You— I know you had your reasons for appointing Jon as Head Archivist, and I think he's done a fantastic job, I really do, I'm— I'm not even sure that I'd want the job knowing what I know now, but it's a bit hard to work in a place where there seems to be such a clear glass ceiling, and also things trying to kill me all the time. I— I respect myself too much to continue to subject myself to this." 

"You were always the smartest of the lot," Elias said. "Well, that all sounds very reasonable, but I'm afraid I can't accept your resignation."

"I'm afraid that's not your choice," Sasha said.

"Oh, but it is," Elias said. "You physically can't quit. Feel free to try, though. Be careful not to use up the rest of your paid leave, I would hate to see you suffer more than necessary in all of this. Send Martin up on your way down, would you?"

#-------#

"Y—you wanted to see me?" Martin said.

"Relax, Martin, this is just a typical performance review," Elias said. "Do you have any reflections on your time in the Archives and your work performance there, then we could discuss feedback, goals, and salary?"

"Right," Martin said. "I, uh. I've been archiving things. I'm— Tim and Sasha are faster on follow-up research, but I'm— I'm dependable? I try to promote a positive work environment."

Elias blinked. "And your reaction to recent events?"

"It was terrifying, but, it's— it was an anomaly, right?" Martin said. "Or— or maybe not. We do research the supernatural, this— all in a day's work, ha ha. And nobody was hurt? So it really wasn't too bad."

"And the directions that Jon has been taking the Archive?" Elias asked. "The more…hands-on research?"

"Well, I— he's the most qualified, right? Not like I have a degree in library science," Martin said. "I, um, I trust him to be doing what he's doing and I'll be. Doing the assisting thing. Sounds very exciting to be documenting a supposed supernatural event while it's happening!"

"There are no worries that you have whatsoever with the events of the last year and a half?" Elias said.

"I'm— I'm not being let go, am I?" Martin said. "I— it's been an adjustment for us all, but I— I promise I'm working as hard as I can and—"

"No, no, your dedication is admirable," Elias said. "Gertrude would have loved you, you're practically _wasted_ on our current Archivist. Your work is satisfactory. I did not plan to offer you a raise beyond what you received last year, but it doesn't sound like you have any objections to that. Stay in the Archives, I'm sure we'll find a way to make use of you yet."

#-------#

Sasha spent a solid month 'attempting to quit' before she came back looking all the worse for the wear. The other Archival staff politely did not comment on it; after all, Elias's attention was constant. And it was really funny, because there really wasn't that much that they were doing. Jon finished sorting through Gertrude's statements, and at a loss of anything better to do, went back to organizing the Archives. He had not been able to locate the written statements of Lester Chang or Alfred Breckon — he was certain anything of use was sitting neatly locked in Elias's desk — and without it, he didn't have much of an excuse of tracing their deliveries to the Trophy Room.

December passed…peacefully. 

Jon surreptitiously kept an eye on memes, but Melanie never appeared, which Jon counted and a win and moved on. If something had _truly_ gone wrong, he expected that Sasha would find a way to tell him. He could live with not knowing the rest. 

He allowed his Archival Assistants to drag him into a holiday party. He nearly put his foot down on the suggestion of a gift exchange, but they'd all looked so excited that he couldn't bring himself to crush the hope out of their eyes.

It was a nice enough party. Jon bought an expensive Yule log, and he was surprised when _Tim_ of all people came in with a plate of frankly delicious mince pies.

"Grandma decided she needed a new hobby in her retirement," he said when pressed.

Jon tried very, _very_ hard not to react because _Elias was watching_ but it must have shown on his face because—

"I _do_ actually stay in contact with my real family sometimes."

"You mean you're avoiding them being here," Sasha said. "Don't think I didn't look into why you were so insistent on the party being _today._ " 

Jon felt a flash of guilt; it had been so easy to write off 'Tim had never been close to his family, not after Danny.' To assume that no more relationships would be casualty to his meddling, that if Tim stayed alive, everything might be magically fixed. "Can we get this over with?" he said. "Gift giving. Uh, Martin, I pulled you from the hat."

"You're not supposed to _tell_!" Sasha said.

"I— sorry, I thought everyone had managed to guess immediately," Jon said. "Here." He shoved a poorly wrapped cardboard box across the table. Martin carefully unfolded it, tearing where he absolutely had to.

Inside, still in its purchased box, was a brand new electric kettle. 

"Since you— you know— make tea," Jon said. "You were complaining about the breakroom one. So I thought you'd like a better one. I don't know anything about— _kettle_ models— so I just— ordered online."

"Only you could get someone a gift entirely for your own benefit," Tim said.

"Tim!" Martin said. "I— _thank_ you. Jon. I really like it. Uh, Sasha, I got you."

"I give up," Sasha said, but she was smiling when Martin pushed a softer package towards her.

"I, um, wasn't quite sure what to get," Martin said as she opened it. Inside was a large, soft-knit sweater. 

"Oh, I love it!" Sasha said, slipping it on. The remaining wrapping rolled to the ground and thumped, some weight still to it.

"Right sorry there was—" Martin scrambled to his knees and picked it up. "Um. I— I know that, um, some of the more dangerous aspects of our job were a bit, um— stressful—"

"Martin, is this _criminal identifier spray_?" Sasha said.

"I— um—"

"Thank you, I love it," Sasha said. "Monsters or no, nobody likes an eyeful of dye. I feel safer already." She turned to Tim. "Since Jon apparently already guessed—"

Tim tore into the package she handed him. It was a sturdy canvas duffel bag with leather fixings. 

"I figured for your new…weekend hobbies," Sasha said.

"Oh, hon, you're delusional if you think I've only been doing it on weekends," Tim said.

"Yes and Tim, we do need to talk about the number of naps you take on the job—" Jon said.

"Not at the party!" Tim said. He swept Sasha up into a bearhug. "Thanks, Sash. This is— I'll put it to good use."

"Alright, alright, put me down!" Sasha said. "Your turn."

Tim pulled out a gun.

It was almost comical how everyone flinched back, even as Tim turned it, muzzle safely pointed towards the floor, and handed it to Jon.

"Tim!" Jon said in a very strangled-sounding voice. 

"Inappropriate?" Tim said, perfectly level. "Sorry, asked my Hunt buddy for advice on what to get someone like you for a present and he said guns were always useful. 'Specially in our line of work."

"Right, um, h— hold onto it, for me?" Jon said. "I need to, um. Figure out a good place to lock it up."

 _Message received_ , he tried to convey to Tim through his eyes.

Tim smiled. "Sure thing! I can teach you. After all, we've got an apocalypse to stop soon, right?"

"Y—let's just eat cake, please," Jon said. "You said no work at the party."

The rest of the party went smoothly enough. Elias didn't join them, for which Jon was eternally grateful. He wasn't sure how much he'd be able to keep it together, with Elias and a gun in the room. And he—

Well, he wasn't quite sure what would be done to _him_ if Gertrude starting getting reports of just how…not himself…he became every time he was in danger of flubbing an interaction with Elias. Because the thing was, it was _spreading_ , it wasn't just when he was talking to Elias, sometimes he thought he could feel himself slipping into an autopilot as his body kept moving, kept reading, kept recording, kept _archiving_ when he was tired and Elias was…watching.

Or perhaps Gertrude had been getting the reports, and the gun was supposed to send _that_ message.

He didn't have to lie at all when he begged out of an afterparty at a pub, claiming exhaustion.

"Take care of yourself, boss," Tim said.

It wasn't a death threat. It couldn't have been. Things hadn't— they hadn't gone _that_ wrong yet.

#-------#

The days off work passed slowly. There was no Bournemouth, no Martin, no Lonely, not this year. Jon wondered what kind of cruel irony had taken hold of his life that he actually _missed_ the Lonely.

The first half of January passed uneventfully. Tim did insist on actually giving Jon the gun, and very slapdash instructions on how to aim it, which he quickly passed on to Martin to hide in the tunnels. Tessa Winters gave her statement, and Jon tried to give her what platitudes he could. There wasn't much he could _say_ to her with Elias's attention fixed on him, not like when Martin could come in the room with fog and tea and he could try to _help_ someone. 

Sorting the Archives helped. He starting sleeping there. Martin shooed him out the door when he caught him, but that was only about half of the time. He could feel it, it was growing in power with the new filing, the new organization, the increased number of recorded statements. He had worked himself up to being able to record one every day, and he hadn't quite noticed it, but at night, he could feel the place _thrumming._

There were more statements read out in his voice — recorded — _archived_ — then there ever had been, in the other world. 

He could feel Elias watching, _judging_ that. 

On the twenty-second of January — perfectly easy for him to come in on a Sunday, he had a _key_ , and just _sitting_ and _waiting_ at home was far, far worse than being in the Archives where he could at least— at least lose himself in busywork—

There was a single paper — no, upon closer inspection, a thin sheaf of papers — that had been placed in the center of his desk. A tape recorder somewhere on the shelves behind him clicked on.

_Statement of Alfred Breekon, regarding a new pair of workers at his delivery company._

Jon let himself grin, imagined that this might be how Tim felt when he smelled blood on the wind. 

(It wasn't. There was a terror coiling in his stomach. He pushed it down.) 

The pebble that was to start the avalanche of the Unknowing had been dropped. It was finally time for it all to _begin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter count has gone up because this chapter was split into two upon being Too Long. second half is mostly written and should go up sooooon? I'm in grading hell so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> feel free to come scream at me as always on tumblr [@ savrenim](https://savrenim.tumblr.com/)


	6. that I could just be brave

It took the entire day to catch the train up to Newcastle, which Jon didn't really consider until he was four or so hours in that he might have wanted to wait for his assistants or have grabbed an overnight bag, as he was most certainly not getting back to London today. Still, he arrived mid-afternoon, and navigated himself to the depot with next to no trouble. 

It was easy enough to jimmy open a window, find the corpse, and take the log books. Jon considered paging through them until he found mentions of the Trophy Room, but he didn't _want_ to, there was the same aura about this place that he remembered, that it was not for him. It was done with its story. Any time spent lingering would be overstaying his welcome. 

As it didn't particularly matter where he went through said books, he grabbed them, squeezed back out the window, and started wandering back towards the metro that would take him to the center of town, where he was more likely to find a hotel. He was pretty sure this counted as a situation that he could get reimbursement with itemized receipts, but just from 'he just hadn't been spending a lot of money on food lately', he wasn't exactly hurting for money. 

His phone rang, an unknown number, and he stared at it, a little bit worried.

Probably spam, he decided. Still, something tugged at him.

"Hello?"

It was Elias's voice on the other end, low and urgent: 

"There's something following you. _Run._ "

#-------#

Jon wasted no time; he shoved the phone deep enough into a pocket that he wouldn't have to worry about it falling out, and started _sprinting._

There was no good public transit nearby, he'd walked a solid fifteen minutes from where he'd gotten off the metro, and he knew, he _Knew_ , that he wasn't going to make it there in time. Which meant that he could — should — concentrate on running in the most nonsensical path that he could, reaching out with this sense of rushing information about his surroundings, hell, he hadn't been able to do it this early, had he? But no, he _knew_ the best way to run.

Although he was an idiot for doing this in January; while he was quite lucky that there wasn't much snow or ice on the ground, only a biting cold in the air, he was _not_ lucky in that it was at most half past five and already getting dark. 

He had no doubts that whatever was chasing him — whatever _Elias_ had deemed serious enough to call him and warn him about — could see in the dark far, far better than him. And maybe it would make it easier to find a corner to hide in, but he couldn't _see_ any of those nearby and his sense of _it's behind you_ was getting stronger and stronger, it was only the desperate pounding terror in his heart and the knowledge that _turning around would slow him down_ that kept him moving forward.

 _God, I wish I'd brought Tim's gun,_ he thought.

Then a strange sense tugged at him: that if he'd really, _really_ wanted to, he could have known, known that something like this would be happening, known that he could have needed it, and if he'd known he could have slipped it into the pocket of his coat and since he _could_ have known, _could_ have done that, what was stopping him from having _actually_ done that, that if he just leaned into the feeling hard enough it would be right there—

And then he was tackled and went sprawling to the ground. Before he could move, he had one arm wrapped behind him in a lock, and an elbow to his head pushing his face into the dirt.

"Jesus, Sims! It's me!" Daisy said. "I'm here to _talk_. If I let you up, you won't run?"

She didn't even sound out of breath, which wasn't fair, Jon's chest was heaving. 

"Friendly talk?" he said.

"Yes, friendly talk!" Daisy said. "Your information was good, Rayner has been taken care of. And I've chatted with a few other people who have known you over the last few months, they've all vouched for you. What were you _thinking_ , coming here alone?"

Jon took a moment to pant, and try to gather his thoughts. Daisy's weight, the unrelenting pressure of being _trapped_ , wasn't letting up.

"I, uh, wasn't really?" he said. "Thinking, that is. I am alone. I won't run. I would appreciate being let go."

The weight on his back released, and a hand helped drag him up, and Jon took in his attacker. It was Daisy alright. He offered her a small smile. She smiled back. Her eyes gleamed unnaturally as they caught the last of the daylight. _Tapetum lucidum_. He was right about the thing chasing him being able to see in the dark better than he would have been able to. 

But it was Daisy. Just Daisy.

He felt the terror settle in his stomach. _Forced_ it to, really. He gingerly brought a hand up to one cheek and dabbed at it. There was blood on his fingers from where it had been ground into the dirt. 

He could feel, as always, Elias watching, and imagined the man was making a check mark on that cursed list of his. Hunt, done. He was a bloody fool for thinking that Elias would ever phone to help. Quite literally, right now.

Daisy, of course, took his gesture the entirely wrong way. "Don't be a baby, it's barely a scratch." 

"I'm not— I work a desk job, you know," Jon said. 

"Yeah, and about that," Daisy said. "What are you doing here?"

"I, uh…following up on a statement," Jon said. "Breekon and Hope, they're connected to the Circus, I found a statement this morning that linked them to the depot."

"So you just got on a train and came up on your own?"

"Yes? None of my assistants were around."

She gave Jon a look and Jon grimaced back as if to say yes, I know I am an idiot, you don't have to say. Daisy clearly did not get this message, as she said, "It's _Sunday_." 

"Right. That would explain that. Well. I got their logs?" Jon said. "So monster hunting. Let's do this?"

#-------#

Daisy all but dragged him to a pub because it was apparently dinnertime and that was as good a place as any to work. Jon was ready to skip the whole eating thing — he didn't get hungry anymore, and he found it _inconvenient_ more than anything, a waste of his time — but Daisy gave him a _look_ that seemed to very strongly imply that that wouldn't fly here, so he ordered the first vegetarian thing on the menu. They started flipping through the log books, and it didn't take particularly long for both of them to notice the Trophy Room.

Jon made as if to leave at that point, and was quite literally dragged back into his chair with a reminder that their food hadn't even shown up yet, let alone the eating bit. He grumbled his way through it, but when the food did arrive, it was nice to put something warm in his system. Like Martin's tea. God, he missed that, even if it had only been one rather cold day and hopefully he'd be back in the Archives tomorrow.

Daisy didn't stop watching him.

"What?" he finally asked.

"Hard to believe that I legitimately thought you were a threat, that's all," she said.

"And what— no, sorry. I'm curious what you think I am now." Nice and straightforward, a statement, not a question.

"A disaster," she said without missing a beat.

"Right, yeah, guess I deserved that," he said. "So, um, you've been…talking to my friends, you said."

"You have pitifully few, outside of your work," Daisy said. "I found an ex-girlfriend. It was enough. She had surprisingly good things to say about you." And Daisy grinned too sharply. "i know none of my exes would have been that nice. Even said that she regretted a bit how harsh she was with you the last time you talked, that she might have blamed you for some things that weren't your fault."

"R—right," Jon said. "So she's…doing okay?"

"Seems to be," Daisy said. "I figured any ex that would be that nice with — and oh, she _told_ me some of the bullshit you pulled — wouldn't be lying when she said you were the good sort. So here we are."

"So here we are," Jon said. "What are we planning on doing from here?"

"I've got a safehouse an hour south of here that we're going to and sleeping," Daisy said. "And then I drop you back off at your Archives and go to the Trophy Room to take down Breekon and Hope."

"You should take me with," Jon said.

Daisy laughed. "You might be monster, but you're mostly a liability. No." 

"Consider this," Jon said. "One, I'll try to come anyways—"

"I could tie you up, leave you in the safehouse."

"—and two, there's no guarantee that Breekon and Hope will be there, or still have a connection there. You've found a clue, not an end destination to lay an ambush, and _I'm the person who can make other people truthfully answer my questions just by asking._ "

"That _is_ a good point."

"I do have my moments," Jon said dryly. "Breekon and Hope are involved in something larger, that my assistants and I are planning on taking down. I....briefly mentioned it."

"The clown apocalypse," Daisy said.

"Yes," Jon said. "One of the powers out there — the Stranger — the fear, I guess, of not recognizing things, or of something you can't tell what being just a little bit wrong — is preparing for the Unknowing. It's a dance that will spread across the world removing all ability from anyone to recognize anything."

"And you call it the _clown_ apocalypse?" Daisy said.

"The current cult of the Stranger is a very weird circus made of living mannequins and things that are skin stapled over plastic," Jon said. "And one of my Assistants has personal a personal vendetta against a clown of theirs. It caught on."

"Right," Daisy said.

"Um, how much have you been caught up on?" Jon said. "Evil fear monsters, Fourteen Entities, the full monty?"

"I'm caught up," Daisy said. "Had the time to do some digging on my own, once you got me started." She surreptitiously made the 'we're being watched' signal.

So Sasha had gotten to her. Or Sasha had talked more to Georgie, and then she'd talked to Georgie. Either way, it was a relief to know that…well, even if Daisy wasn't in on the conspiracy, she at least was informed enough to not accidentally blow the conspiracy wide open.

He picked at his food quietly for a bit. Daisy had finished hers, and just watched him silently.

"Would you be interested in being one?" Jon said suddenly.

"One what?" Daisy said.

"One of my pathetically nonexistent non-work friends," Jon said.

"It sounds like we're about to be working together," Daisy said.

"Right," Jon said. 

"You don't need to look like a kicked puppy, I didn't say we couldn't be friends," Daisy said, sounding far too amused. 

"Yes, right," Jon said.

There was another awkward pause.

"So, um. Interesting books? Read any?" Jon asked.

"No, Jon," Daisy said. "I haven't had the time. I did have a three hundred and fifty year old astronomer to kill, an entire supernatural world to figure out, and I've got a day job. You?"

"What?"

"Have you read any interesting books?"

"Um." Jon tried to think. "I've read a lot of statements?"

"Pathetic," Daisy said. She was smiling. 

"Worms attacked my Institute and almost ate me, one of my assistants had a dramatic… change of faith, another _tried_ to quit and perhaps more worryingly _failed_ , _I've_ had an apocalypse to organize all efforts against, and I've got a day job," Jon said. "But go off I guess."

Daisy laughed. "Alright. Fine. Friends. I could probably use more of those. Only got one human one and it doesn't particularly seem safe these days to be making more."

Jon pushed his food around his plate a bit more. It had long since gotten cold, but… _friends_. He didn't think anything could dissuade the warm feeling in his stomach.

#-------#

The next morning, before they hit the road again, Jon checked him email.

"Oh, that _bastard_."

Daisy looked over from where she was re-packing essentials into the various drawers and closets where they belonged. "What?"

"Statement of Alexander Scaplehorn, regarding his evaluation of 'The Trophy Room' taxidermists in Barnet," Jon said, scrolling through the scanned document on his phone even though he knew the contents. "Daniel Rawlings is mentioned in it, one of the six victims of what we've been calling 'the Anglerfish'. And it seems like they have the First Skin, gorilla skin from Carthage circa 5th century BC, which is central to their ritual. If I had been given _this_ statement first, I wouldn't have had to come all the way up to Newcastle. Very funny, Elias. I will _make you pay._ I've got receipts for the train tickets and now Daisy is going to charge you for the petrol. Add _that_ to your precious quarterly budgets."

"Bouchard?" Daisy said. "He can hear you?"

Jon shrugged. "We both work at an Institute that is all but a temple to a god of Knowledge and Watching, and he seems to know everything. I assume he'll eventually get the memo." 

"You have a weird fucking life," Daisy said. 

"From what I've gathered, it's fairly normal in my line of work," Jon said. 

Daisy laughed. "Shall we go stop the clown apocalypse, then?"

Jon grinned. "Now you're getting it. Yes, let's."

#-------#

They made it to the Trophy Room in one piece. Daisy drove like an absolute madwoman, so the drive itself only took four hours, which meant it was early afternoon, well before closing time.

The little bell rang jarringly above the door as Daisy burst through, Jon practically jogging to follow her, and before he could properly orient himself Daisy had jumped across the counter and had Sarah Baldwin in a half nelson. 

"Who the hell are you people!" Sarah sputtered. "Let me go!"

"Daisy, this is a _little_ bit much," Jon said.

"You're under arrest," Daisy said.

"We— Daisy, we don't have any evidence?" Jon said. "Has she even committed a crime?"

"Fuck," Daisy said. "Give me a crime I can pin on her."

"Uh, breaking and entering in Cambridge Military Hospital, I guess?" Jon said. "Would be January of 2015."

"You're under arrest for breaking and entering in January of 2015," Daisy said. 

"You're insane!" Sarah said. "You're making a huge mistake is what you're doing!"

"We— we really don't need to arrest her for me to ask the questions," Jon said. "I just need to— to ask questions. We could just be having a conversation. Find the Skin, maybe their base of operations, and then get out and get—"

And then all hell broke loose as Breekon and Hope entered from the back room, where presumably they'd been moving things around in the basement. Hope clocked Daisy over the top of the head, causing her to lose her grip on Sarah, who vaulted over the counter and flew at Jon. Jon got about halfway to the door as he had _not signed up for this_ , thank you very much, and had decided that running would be a good idea, when Sarah plowed into him, twisted an arm behind his back, and dragged him to his feet. 

"Oh do stop," came a voice from the doorway of the inner office. The perfectly banal silhouette of a mannequin, distinguished only by its ringmaster's outfit, stepped into the light. Jon panted from the lock that Sarah had him in, while it took both Breekon and Hope to hold back Daisy, who did not look like she was interested whatsoever in _stopping_.

"Well, Archivist," Nikola said. "Surprising to see you here. And you've caught yourself a pet Hunter?"

"She caught me, really," Jon said.

Daisy stopped struggling for a second to say, "Damn right I did", then went right back to attempting to stomp through Breekon's instep. 

"And I couldn't help but overhear, but it seems like you've come looking for the First Skin," Nikola continued. "This opens some interesting possibilities." 

"Yes, well, I had a statement that said it would be in this shop," Jon said. "I thought I'd do the — the _Archivist_ thing and just pop in and ask some quick questions. Really just looking to watch and record events as they go down and all that. If— if you have it I would love to see it, then we're happy to get out of your hair."

"Had," Nikola said icily. "Your predecessor stole and we thought destroyed it. But now I'm starting to think that maybe she was just very good at hiding."

Jon knew what was supposed to come next, but for some reason — the waiting, the slow buildup of fear, the _game_ of it all, he just couldn't stand it.

"I mean, I wouldn't count on that," he said. "I've seen no evidence that she didn't dispose of it, I kind of assumed you had it because there were no notes whatsoever that she left about it. Depending on when she stole it she very well may have used it to disrupt another ritual — she seemed to be very fond of doing that, just tossing one power at another, never went good for either thing involved. Or explosives, although I guess the Skin was resilient in the 1787 attempt. And if she did hide it — well, if all else fails, encase it in cement, right? And she would have done it somewhere completely arbitrary, not special at all, like the ritual circle for — oh, I suppose she had a particular affinity for the Desolation, so she may have burned it after all. Regardless, whatever she did, it wouldn't be _unfinished_ , and I have better things to do than waste my time looking for it, so if you don't have it I'll be on my way."

(Gertrude hadn't destroyed it, she'd informed Jon. She'd seen no need, as she knew there was no actual danger in the Unknowing _working_ , and thought that it might come in use one day as a bargaining chip or blackmail. But Jon could picture oh-so-clearly the ruined tatters of it that he'd found in the storage unit and let that come to mind: there was nothing that Gertrude Robinson couldn't burn.) 

Nikola stared at him, mouth open.

"Were you really expecting anything different?" Jon said. "I'm sorry, but I think you're going to have to find another skin."

"No," Nikola said. "I really won't."

And then there was a sharp pain to his head and everything went black.

#-------#

Jon woke up dazed, tied to a chair, and with Nikola in front of him. He was surprised to find that he was not blindfolded or gagged, but he supposed that he hadn't really used his powers in the Trophy Room, hadn't given them a reason to think they needed to.

Well, he was about to.

" _Where. Is. Daisy?_ "

"Breekon knocked her out and left her in an alley. It takes severely more preparation to kill an Avatar of the Hunt, and we didn't want to risk bringing her here in case there were complications."

There was a moment's pause.

"Gag him and blindfold him," Nikola snarled. "And to think, with all the hospitality we were showing you."

"You are planning on taking my _ski—_ mmpffph!" There were a few more sounds of muffled indignation, but no, nothing was coming out around that gag. Jon's glasses were plucked off his face and discarded, and cloth was roughly tied around his eyes as well.

"Oh, and are you recording? How _cute_ ," Nikola said, plucking a tape out of Jon's front pocket. "Who is listening? Your Elias? Elias, can I call you Elias? He's _mine_ now, and you can't have him back. I was hoping, of course, to just follow your Archivist around, see if he'd find that old ancient relic. But then he pointed out to me that the chances of Gertrude managing to have destroyed it were _astronomically_ high, especially given her various… _ties_ to the Desolation. Quite true, more than he knew, even, and very kind of him to point out, but a little bit stupid. You should train your next one better, teach them not to ask such leading questions. Oh, but I guess it's my turn to ask the questions! How do you feel about being my lovely frock!"

It was very difficult to attempt to say 'fuck you' through a gag.

"Anyway, you sit tight. Lots to do! Ooh, also, do you have preferred brand of lotion? Because you have not been taking care of your skin, and we really do need it in better shape before we peel you."

Jon made another sound of muffled indignation.

"Alright, I’ll just ask them to pick up a selection!"

She left him alone, in his own dark, and the sounds of other moment across the room faded.

Alone. 

Hopefully the rest of them would — hopefully Daisy would — hopefully _Elias_ would — well, he had survived this once. Hopefully he would survive it again.

#-------#

Jon passed the time for six days mostly…sleeping, actually. His blindfold and gag were never removed — he wasn't fed or given water, and he found himself quietly thanking his god that he was kind of beyond the point of needing it — but the lack of statements meant that nightmares were his best form of sustenance.

That, and, well — Nikola insisted on _monologuing_ to him every day as she came by to rub lotion into his skin. They had not yet gotten through the full selection of products that her minions had picked up for her, which meant that half of these monologues were examining the state of his skin from the previous lotion against pros and cons and hopes for the newest one, but she also tended to feed him stories of atrocities the Stranger was committing. 

Which — Jon wasn't sure if she was purposefully feeding him, doing it subconsciously because his ambient… _aura?_ … was strong enough, or if she'd forgotten that he needed food of the mundane and supernatural kind and was just attempting to torment him with the stories of innocent horror and death.

He wasn't sure which one would upset him most. Although, on principle, not knowing was in a way all the worse. 

She was halfway through the story of a new NotThem they'd been trying to make — apparently, they'd written off the previous one the moment Gertrude had gotten the table, but it was actually a relatively important aspect of the Stranger to have one in play, and she wouldn't quite tell him how but was being delightfully horrifying anyways about the various ways they'd gone about collecting pieces for the new one — when there was a strange popping sound on the edge of his hearing.

A door appearing, he Knew. 

Which — the timing was _wrong_ , Michael was supposed to appear when no one was watching him, there was no way the Distortion could beat Nikola in her stronghold, not when the Stranger was on the brink of a ritual and the Spiral had just failed one. Had Helen taken over too soon, did she not know her own limitations?

His thoughts were cut abruptly short as surround sound began to blast through the museum:

" _IT'S BRITNEY, BITCH._ " 

The bass and the beat kicked in.

 _What. the. fuuuuuck._ Jon wanted to say. But he was gagged. Until suddenly he wasn't, or rather, his gag was now….cotton candy? He was pretty sure that the music was now saying "I see you," and perfectly timed, his blindfold turned into strangely shaped, heavy glasses. He suspected they were some form of ridiculous sparkly novelty accessory but he wasn't quite in a position to take them off and see. The glass was blue on one side and red on the other, but through them he could make out his surroundings as he spat out cotton candy, trying and partially succeeding not to choke on it.

Helen Richardson was indeed standing across the chamber. Her hair was down, curly and wild, longer than Jon remembered it; she loomed well over two and a half meters tall, in a brightly colored and perfectly tailored pinstripe suit, except the stripes zigzags and the zigzags weren't quite…straight, or any one fixed color; an equally tailored pencil skirt; and bedazzled roller skates. The mechanics of her skirt and the stunts she was pulling with the roller skates as she seemed to be holding her own in a melee against at least a dozen mannequins did not add up in any sane world, but nothing was sane around her; she was unmistakably the Distortion, her yellow calling card of a door reflecting the flashing disco lights that now illuminated the interior of the wax museum basement. 

Nikola growled, and sprung up from Jon's side to throw herself into the fight, as Helen finished…yeah, Jon was pretty sure decapitating or at the very least reducing to a pile of limp plastic body parts her first wave of attackers. She paused dramatically to flick down from where they were holding her hair back her own pair of novelty glasses — two extended hands with twisting fingers and the colored glass in the palms — which was giving Jon very little hope about what was currently on his face — as Nikola grabbed without breaking stride some sort of flensing instrument. Nikola swung it, a perfect horizontal arc, but Helen's legs just… kept moving forward, and her torso backwards, and she'd pulled an immaculate limbo underneath the thing and her momentum propelled her across the floor before Nikola could track where she'd gone.

"Jon!" Helen said. She was smiling, and it was _terrifying_. "Come on! Get up! Rescue time!"

"I'm tied up!" Jon said.

"You're not?" Helen said. 

Jon looked down. The ropes were now silly string. 

The only emotion he could summon was 'Helen do you know how difficult silly string is to get out of a wool cardigan', but his survival instincts had evolved to the point where he knew better than to say it out loud.

(That was a lie. He'd never had the survival instincts enough to shut his mouth, and that hadn't changed here and now. But he could pretend that the combination of exhaustion and the strange scratch of spun sugar down his parched throat that make talking a Herculean effort was survival instincts.) 

Nikola screamed across the room as she realized that Helen had gotten to her prize, and Helen seemed to decide that Jon was not standing up fast enough as sharp fingers dug into his upper arm and he was pulled up and through the threshold of a door that seemed to have teleported to them in the heartbeat between blinks. He never felt them going through it. One moment they were in the basement, and the next the door shut behind them and all that stretched forward with those eternal right branches were the faded black and yellow carpet and walls, except…they all felt more _substantial_ than he remembered. 

"Helen." He was — he was perhaps hyperventilating. A little bit. "Helen what was that. Helen if you'd — if you'd waited twenty minutes I would have been alone — what — _why?_ —"

"Archivist," said the Distortion. "Do you know the difference between a villain and a supervillain?"

"No?" Jon said. "Helen, what does that—"

"Presentation."

A flash of recognition hit him. He wasn't sure if it was a Beholding thing or a maybe Georgie had dragged him to see it and he'd buried it deep in his subconscious thing, but — "Helen, did you just quote _Megamind_ at me?"

"You did not give me an 'Introduction To Becoming a Monster' module," Helen said. "I needed to do my own research."

"I think I'm going to collapse now," Jon said. 

"Hmph," Helen said, and the world around them resolved into a courtyard of tables outside of a cafe and he was still — they were still _in_ the Spiral but as best he could tell they were actually just sitting together and there was a steaming mug of tea in front of him that hadn't been there a second before and it was — it was all just too much.

"H— Helen—"

"You should drink the tea," the — the Distortion? the _Spiral_ itself? — said. "Your Archival Assistant said it makes you feel better."

A whoosh of breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding left him, and he cupped the tea in his hands. He wasn't quite ready to start drinking it yet but if… if Martin had sent Helen, it was all fine. This was all fine.

She was still looking at him expectantly, so he took a sip. It was…perfect. Perfect temperature, somehow simultaneously exactly how he liked it most and exactly what he needed the most: a slight bitterness grounding him in reality, washing down the lingering sweetness in his throat. He shivered, and placed the cup delicately back down into the saucer. 

"Helen, can I ask…" He chewed on his bottom lip as he tried to figure out how to word it. "This is…this is more power than the Spiral is supposed to have, I don't understand how you're _doing_ all this."

"Are you worried that I'm eating people, Archivist?" She seemed amused by the implication, but Jon was under no illusions that he was entirely at her mercy right now.

"I— a little bit, yes," he admitted.

"I mean, I am," Helen said. "I let them all go when they're done, and they seem to think I'm helping. Would you like to see?"

"Do you even have to ask?" Jon said.

"It's only polite, Archivist." She snapped, and the cafe around them dissolved and they were looking down instead from what seemed to be the second floor of a library onto a vast room lined with tables, each seat with their own little dividers, outlets, and lamps. Hundreds of the chairs were empty, but hundreds were full, as exhausted looking twenty-some-odd year olds stumbled sometimes between their nooks and the shelves lining the walls. 

"Are you— are you eating—"

"Give the statement, Archivist," the Spiral's manifestation said.

#-------#

Back in the Archives, Sasha James's phone buzzed.

  
**the bae (๑*◡*๑) ٩(❛ัᴗ❛ั⁎)ೄ**  


> _What do you want for dinner? I'm picking up, of course. I've heard great things about a new Thai place somewhere-or-other._  
> 

She bit her lip, considering.

#-------#

Jon took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were lit with a green backglow, and a tape recorder that he hadn't had a moment ago clicked itself on.

"The stairs in the Cambridge University Library sometimes stretch down a floor more than they should. At the bottom is a yellow door. It opens to a blank wall. Or does it? No one can quite agree what building, what stairwell it is in. Sometimes it'll appear on the backs of buildings. Sometimes, if you're truly desperate, you'll find it in a forgotten corner of your residence hall.

"If it opens for you — if you are chosen — you can take only what you have with you. You are in a hall. It is a library, but not quite. A common workspace. It is entirely empty, it is entirely full. You can see outlines of people just like you, just as _desperate_ as you, settling into their own little corners, surrounded by their own piles of books and despair, except you can't quite see them. Can't quite reach out to them. There are no distractions here. Your legs move inexorably forward, depositing you at a desk with a placard that if you look closely enough, seems to have you name emblazoned into the bronze.

"You will not get hungry. You will not get tired. Your computer will not lose charge, although you may plug it in to the oh-so-kindly provided outlets to make yourself feel better. It never feels better. There is no internet, but somehow, any source material that you need, your computer can connect to. Any books you need are here. Paywalls mean nothing here. Not that you'll ever find any papers that are easy answers to your questions, or step-by-step solutions that are simple for you to understand. Any understanding that you want here, you must _fight_ for, and it is an uphill battle that will try to sap everything from you even as everything around you encourages you to succeed. 

"The printers on each end of the hall will helpfully provide you with iteration after iteration of practice exams. There is a small breakroom with a kettle and an infinite supply of tea for you to go and have panic attacks. There are cookies, sometimes. Different every time. There is no other break in the monotony. Time does not pass in this hall like it does outside; any timekeeping device will be display numbers that you cannot read, that all blur into one another. Not that you'd want to know how many days you spend here, this last and final resort, the single flimsiest hope that with just a little bit more _time_ you won't fail.

"You can leave whenever you want. Somewhere between nine and forty-seven minutes will have passed, no more, no less, no matter how long you think you've stayed. When you step back through that door, it takes something from you. You will be unable to summon anything but calm when you try to think about whatever you came through that door to do. All of the anxiety, all of the panic that you felt about whatever assignment, whatever exam, was important enough to drive you through the door in the first place — it will be gone. It'll hit you like two, three all-nighters in a row once you've put your pen down and handed in your work to the instructor. You'll sleep it off, dream of your syllabus, dream of all the work you have left to do. You'll consider whether or not you are ever truly desperate enough to open that door again. There are rumors on forums on where you might find it, instructions for summoning it. It never stays in place long enough for someone to track it down on purpose, but it comes to those who need it like a siren's song drawn to tired tears and espresso-fueled desperation. 

"It hasn't eaten anyone yet, but anyone who sees it knows that it could. After all, it only opens for those who are wretched enough to brave the belly of a monster for just one more day of review, as if one second — one minute — one hour would make a difference in their neverending hell. You'll make first class honors, though, if you're brave enough. People sell their soul for less these days. You leave the door. You'll pass your course. You try not to dread the fact that you would go back in a heartbeat." 

"Statement….ends. Helen, are you eating uni students' anxiety?"

"The Spiral feeds off of madness and confusion, do you have _any_ idea how much the first course in mathematics alone has strengthened me?"

"This is _insane_ ," Jon said.

Helen snapped her fingers, and they were back at the cafe. "Don't want to distract the students hard at work. It's working. You asked why I was more powerful. You have your answer."

"You're feeding on _teenagers_ —"

"I don't take minors, Jon, I have standards," Helen said, for the first time looking briefly annoyed. "But yes. Undergraduates, graduates, college, uni, I'm not terribly picky. I'm not _doing_ anything to them, other than providing them with a study hall that provides for all of their needs and then just soaking in the ambient anxiety. It turns out that a maze of corridors was and never will be quite as scary as an infinite string of practice exams that they can take over and over as many times as they want. It's all about understanding." She leaned forward, laced her many-jointed fingers together. "The Spiral isn't about _raw fear_ , you see, it's the—the _madness_ and _hopelessness_ of what is right in front of you just _not making sense._ Archivist, I have consumed more power in one day from trigonometric identities and volume integrals than Michael made in his entire tenure as the Distortion, and I haven't eaten a single person. Arguably, I'm _helping_ them, although mostly I'm enjoying laughing at them."

#-------#

_Yeah, Thai sounds good,_ Sasha typed back.

#-------#

"Laughing at them," Jon said flatly.

"I was good at mathematics before and I am bloody perfect at it now, if I do say so myself," Helen said. "It's kind of funny to see humans attempting to understand it. You think you know _anything_ about primes?"

"P—please don't talk to me about maths," Jon said. "It makes my head hurt."

"Of course," Helen said brightly. "Now, if you wanted to take my statement?"

"I— I already have your statement?" Jon said. "And now the statement about your study hall? Do I need another one?"

"If you need to contact me again, this entire place is like a dream," Helen said. "That's what you told me, so that's what it is. You can use that. You can come here any time you dream, if you have my statement. Convenient if you get kidnapped or need a quick rescue or want to hang out. You don't want to always be trapped in my study hall in your dreams until you can get my attention, do you, Jon? I'm a very busy woman, and you seem to not like maths. I've been branching out, but it's still more than eighty percent maths in there. You can take practice exams while you wait for me if you'd prefer, I suppose."

"Yes, yes, I'll take the statement!" Jon said. "Statement of Helen Richardson, taken, um… Helen, do you know what the date is?"

"Time is hard, Archivist."

"Taken…hopefully still in January of 2017, direct from subject, on the becoming of the Spiral."

#-------#

Sasha's phone buzzed again.

**the bae (๑*◡*๑) ٩(❛ัᴗ❛ั⁎)ೄ**

> _Yeah, Thai sounds good_
> 
> _Menu.  
>  But I can pick up from anywhere if that doesn't look appealing._  
> 

She sighed, and turned properly away from her failed attempts to track the van though hacked footage. Tim and Martin weren't around, but she still felt _guilty._

Guilty and hungry. _She_ was still human, and the stress of Jon disappearing well before he was supposed to and Daisy limping in a day later growling about the Circus hadn't been particularly conducive to cooking much. There were only so many microwaved meals she could stand.

It also wasn't conducive to planning nice evenings with fancy food.

**the bae (๑*◡*๑) ٩(❛ัᴗ❛ั⁎)ೄ**

> _honestly I'm still stressed about Jon being gone? anything you grab will be fine_
> 
> _I wouldn't worry about that!  
>  Send me your order!_  
> 

Sasha _stared_ and the words did not squiggle or change in front of her. If that meant what she thought it meant—

#-------#

Helen took a deep breath, and smiled.

"You never knew me as a person, but you did, didn't you? You knew me better than I knew you, when I first came to you. So perhaps you already know. I like things to _fit_. I like them to _make sense_ , and when they don't, I need to _fix_ it. I suspect that's why the Spiral chose to target me. Easy pickings. It should have known better, really. 

"Did you know that if you tried to measure the exact length of a country's borders with coastlines, it will be longer and longer the finer and finer of a tool that you use? An infinite distance, which doesn't make _sense_ , there should only be so many kilometers in the world, but when you let things curl and twist and twine they just _keep going_. Fractals, one of those beautiful terrible things that defy the intuition of Euclidean logic. The best way to describe them in a manner that is _useful_ — iterations to scaling factor — leads to things like a 1.585 dimensional triangle. And the thing is, it doesn't make _no_ sense — if you know the steps that it took to get there, it makes _all_ of the sense, you just need to be willing to make a leap of faith, to take it that the world can be abstract, that your understanding will be metaphors written out in formulas, the sharpest of poetry.

"All it takes is that leap of faith. A willingness to believe the _rules_ , even if you don't know who made them up, why, to let them order the world in madness with a map of how to get exactly to the center. Until one day you're mad enough to understand how those rules were written, and you look around, and it's the world that looks at _you_ in confusion as you grasp like slipping water the pure _truth_ of it all.

"You gave me those rules, Archivist. You gave me that map. _A dream_ , you told me. So long as I believed my lies more than I believed its, I would win. Did you think I would just go home, after you gave me the key? Retreat, pull it out like a blanket to hide under as I spent the rest of my life tormented? 

"I could not see that life. What I could see was the Spiral, unravelling. 

"Do you know how many steps it took me to get to the central of the Spiral, Jon? You wouldn't be able to _count_ them, you'd get a _lie_ , an imaginary number— you could talk about a modulus, you could talk about an angle, but it wouldn't _translate_ , not really. It took me but a step to be in an office, an island, an infinite twisting stairway. He was on the other side of the mirror. He looked so…sad. He never wanted to be the Spiral. I reached out, and he reached out towards me. We were smiling. We were crying. And I could feel it, solidifying, all around me. He was terrified. It was all I could do not to scream. 

"I left him in the house on Saint Albans Avenue. It's in his name. I left him with a small trust fund. Money is so easy for me now, Archivist, it's all lies. I wouldn't recommend going for a statement. He doesn't remember much, memories are hard for him. He doesn't deserve to have it ripped back out of him and into him. I would advise you not to try. He has a service dog named Mandelbrot, and he is going to be okay. I hope he is going to be okay. I tried so very hard not to hurt him. 'Helen Richardson, who never wanted to hurt anyone.' That's who you thought I was, wasn't it? An innocent victim that maybe with the right words, the right push, you could save.

"You have saved me in ways you could not imagine, Archivist. Helen Richardson — I like the name, so it is _mine_ now — Helen Richardson was never a helpless victim for you to protect. My corridors are long, and twisting. My limbs are long, and twisting, and there are many monsters made of the very stuff that reality is made of: unitarily evolving waves of not-quite-there until it all collapses from looking too hard. Made of _me_. I will overtake them all. I will _become_. Or perhaps I already am. Also, I'm shagging one of your very lovely assistants. No, I won't tell you which one. Statement ends."

The recorder clicked off.

" _What?!_ "

"Aw." Helen cupped a hand gently around the side of Jon's face. "You are so much fun to mess with, do you know that? I don't think I've ever had as good a friend as you in my life."

"I, uh, thank you?" Jon said.

A door slowly shimmered into existence a few steps beyond their table. "That'll lead back to your Archives," Helen said. "I'll see you around!"

He stood to leave, walked over to the door in a bit of a daze, reached out towards the handle, then… stopped. Turned to say thank you, but Helen wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on a rectangle of metal that was cradled between her long, long fingers.

She was… texting.

"Helen?" Jon said.

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm texting. Really, I've been texting this whole time. You should try it, it's quite fun."

"Yes but— what for?"

"I'm arranging date night, of course," Helen said. "Specifically, I'm seeing what my paramour — again, your Assistant is _delightful_ , do you think it's too early for a marriage proposal? — wants for dinner. I'll just post our order on one of the forums and a student will bring it. They've figure out that the door _will_ appear immediately for the first one who gets my takeout, even if they aren't actually all that ruffled up over their work."

"I— I really appreciate your statement and the whole— the whole dream idea, it's ingenious, but— are you— are you telling me that you could have just given me your _phone number_ this whole time?"

She grinned, far too widely. "Oh, but Jon. You don't have a phone."

#-------#

Jonathan Sims stormed out of a quickly fading yellow door in the back storeroom of the Archives, and towards his office and the Archival Assistant general workspace.

Tim and Sasha, at least, were there. Neither of them had their phones out, so no obvious culprit. Sasha rushed over as if to hug him or pat him down for injuries. Honestly, Jon would take either. In any other circumstances. Right now, there was one thing on his mind.

"Jon! We were so worried, are you—"

"Whichever one of you is shagging Helen, your girlfriend just stole my phone," Jon snapped.

Tim stared for a second, and then burst out laughing. In between guffaws, he managed to eek out a, "But boss. You've never had a phone."

"Are you— were you hurt?" Sasha said. "We assumed it was the Stranger, but—"

"But apparently, _I don't have a phone_ so I couldn't text you and tell you where to pick me up," Jon said.

"Were you not, like, searched first?" Sasha said. "Or tied up? If— if you were in a position to use a phone then I have some serious questions about—"

"Well I don't have a phone, now do I?" Jon said.

"I don't think you ever did?" Sasha said. "You— you really should get one, by the way, it'll make organizing things easier, and now that work has gotten a bit dangerous we could all text each other check-ins every day—"

"If you are pulling my leg—"

"Oh, Jon!" Martin said, carrying a pile of statements in from the stacks. No comments on Jon's sudden reappearance and safety, and really, if Elias hadn't been Watching the whole thing, Jon would be a lot more hurt. "Are you considering getting a phone? I've been telling him to for ages."

"All of you are fired," Jon said flatly. 

Tim fell to the floor laughing. 

Jon sighed. 

"I am going to go— _report_ to—" (scream at) "—Elias, regarding my…current situation. And then we will have _words_."

Jon appreciated his other two assistants, at least, for waiting until he was most of the way up the stairs before bursting out laughing themselves.

#-------#

The door practically slammed against the wall as Jon very maturely showed himself into Elias's office to take his feelings out on someone that, in his opinion, certainly deserved it _more_ than his long-suffering assistants.

"And _you_ ," he spat.

"You seem furious, Jon," Elias said, not bothering to hide the hint of bemusement that tinged all of his stupid, stupid words.

"I have been _kidnapped_ for a full week and we have two, practically three Hunters on staff, why didn't you—"

"I'm flattered that you think I'm powerful enough to swoop in and save you like that," Elias said. "The Stranger isn't something we can easily See. I assure you, your assistants were working very hard to secure your return. I believe Sasha was trying to hack CCTV footage for Breekon and Hope when I last checked."

"Do you want to know what happened to me because my assistants didn't rescue me?" Jon said.

"I believe I'm about to find out," Elias said.

"The Spiral _stole_ my cell phone!" 

It was…harder to maintain a straight face shouting that at Elias than it had been in the moment when he was just returned to the Archives, especially put like that, but Jon was determined to see this through.

"I do not believe that you had a cell ph— aaah, I see," Elias said. "So you were rescued by the Distortion?"

"Helen Richardson. She's quite taken to it. She gave me her statement," Jon said.

"Fantastic," Elias said. "Did you learn anything?"

"Besides the fact that she can erase personal property from existence and that she's seducing one of my assistants right out from under my nose?" Jon said. "A lot of metaphors about math that went entirely over my head."

Oops. He hadn't meant for the middle bit to come out. He was still— he was _furious_. Normally, he'd suspect Tim, because Tim was the one who'd consistently seduced everyone for leads, but there wasn't anything _normal_ about this, was there?

"The Spiral lies, Archivist," Elias said. "It's why we aren't usually aligned with it. I wouldn't worry yourself too much."

"It _matters_ to me," Jon said. He tried to remind himself why it did. He'd had pictures of the Admiral on it, and wasn't quite sure if he and Georgie were at texting-for-replacement-cat-pictures levels right now. 

"Buy a new phone, write it off as a company expense," Elias said. "You're bleeding."

Jon glanced down. There were indeed four lines of blood seeping through his thoroughly ruined — in fact, still covered in silly string — cardigan. It must have been where Helen had grabbed him when he hadn't stood fast enough for her. 

"I honestly hadn't noticed," Jon said. "That would be Ms. Richardson again, she was overly enthusiastic in the rescuing process. The Stranger was very carefully not to leave marks on my skin. Just _lotion_."

Elias sighed, and opened a lower drawer in his desk, pulling out a well-stocked first aid kit. "Sometimes marks don't appear on your skin. Let me look at that for you?"

Jon shrugged off the corpse of a cardigan and oh, the sleeve of his shirt beneath had been almost entirely sliced through, and Elias carefully cut the rest away to get a look at the scratches. "While I have you here, was there anything else that you needed?"

"I—" Jon tried not to wince at the sting of disinfectant. "Do you know if Gertrude had….a storage locker? Or a place she might hide something? Or— a confidant, who would know?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Nikola thought there was a chance that the first skin hadn't been destroyed. And, well, it survived cannons and the Slaughter, didn't it? So it— it wouldn't have been that easy to dispose of. If it's sitting around, I could just— _give_ it to the Circus, and they'll start their ritual, and we'll actually be able to stop it," Jon said. "Otherwise they'll keep trying to use me. As exciting as the bit where two Avatars were playing tug-of-war over me was, the rest was quite frankly boring and would be a waste of time to repeat."

Elias began taping up his arm. "Do you think you are ready to stop the Unknowing?"

"I think with— well, three now, Hunters who are chomping at the bit, considering Tim and his rabid partner come as a unit and Daisy has the scent— I think that I have a far better chance at stopping the Unknowing than stopping them from raiding the museum too early," Jon said. "I— I'm ready. We're ready. I want to see a ritual."

"Then I'll cede to whatever you think is best," Elias said. "I have great faith in you, Jon."

Jon shivered.

"There. Done," Elias said. "BWI Self Storage, in Hainault. Under the name Jane Kelly. I believe the key is in the Archives. If Gertrude had it hidden, it would be there."

#-------#

"Oh, hey boss!" Tim said as Jon made his way down the stairs. "Did the gun help?"

"What?" Jon said.

"The gun," Tim said. "When you were kidnapped. Did you at least get one of them?"

"I— I didn't have it on me," Jon said.

"What's the point in having a gun if you don't use it to not get kidnapped? What did you think I gave it to you for?" 

"I— I don't know, that it was some sort of… _message_ about how you were getting restless?"

"I tell you to your face when— have I _ever_ , for a _single day_ , let go of a _single_ excuse to complain to you?" Tim said. "It was for _you_ , you idiot, I get worried about you!" 

Tears prickled at the corners of Jon's eyes and he didn't want to acknowledge them, so he tried to throw himself into indignation. "Tim I don't know how to use it!"

"It— you turned down my offers to show you!"

"Because they're very illegal!" Jon said. "And if we got caught the two officers I had interacted with so far did not leave with particularly good impressions of me, so it's not like we have friends in the police! I don't like confrontation!"

"Do we need to set you up with a buddy system?" Tim said. "Because we _will_ set you up with a buddy system if you're not going to protect yourself. I _do_ like confrontation. I am very pro-confrontation right now."

"Yes, yes, and I'm— I might have a plan," Jon said. "Elias gave me the address where Gertrude was keeping the First Skin. We can find it. We can start the Unknowing."

"Take the fight to them." Tim grinned. "I like it. When?"

"Honestly?" Jon said. "Tonight."

#-------#

**the bae (๑*◡*๑) ٩(❛ัᴗ❛ั⁎)ೄ**

> _Will be home late, Jon just said we're baiting the Circus by pretending to fetch the first skin to destroy it._  
>  _Likely to go terribly wrong but at least there will be three Hunters._  
>  _Keep dinner warm?_
> 
> _Oh, getting your murder on? Have fun!_  
>  _On second thought, can I come?_
> 
> _that really might be for best_  
>  _the boys seem rather set on getting themselves killed, especially when Martin can't actually help_  
>  _see you in Hainault!! <3<3<3_  
> 

#-------#

The baiting of the skin went perfectly.

Well, it was a disaster, but it ended perfectly. 

They took two cars again, Martin's and Gerry's. Daisy met them right as they were all leaving, and insisted that Jon be in the Hunter car for his own protection, so he ended up in the backseat next to her as she, Gerry and Tim all started pleasantly bickering over music, like they did this every weekend.

And it was just so _familiar_ that…

"You guys don't, uh, all know each other, do you?" Jon said.

"No?" Daisy said.

"Yeah, Jon," Tim said. "Don't be racist, we Hunters don't all just know each other."

"It's a Hunter thing," Gerry said over him. "We all either get very territorial, or immediately are all on the same wavelength. Helps that we're all friend of a friend here and on the same mission."

"Also, I'm wounded that you haven't heard of me," Tim continued. 

"Should I have?" Daisy said. 

"Tim? Tim Stoker? Ring any bells?" Tim said.

"Oh _you're_ the Tim that's broken four receptionists' and three officers' hearts," Daisy said.

" _Thank_ you," Tim said. "And I like to think that your count's a bit off. Make that five receptionists." 

"Marcela does not and never has cared about you, and announced to the rest of the south station crew that you weren't even her fourth best lay and were not worth the trouble," Daisy said.

"Lies and slander, she was upset about at getting audited. I was actually talking about Michael, whom I dropped on account of being named Michael—"

Mercifully, they pulled up, and Jon was able flee the conversation before having to learn any more incriminating details on Tim's sex life. He was able to find the locker well enough, and fumbled with the key until he could draw the door aside. 

Light shone past him and on the contents of the locker as Daisy came up behind him with a torch. She whistled. "Now _that_ is a hell of a lot of fun stacked in the corner."

Jon grabbed the skin, which was sitting neatly on top of a box and pointedly ignored the huge pile of explosives. "We do _not_ need those, we are _not_ touching those."

"Well _you're_ not," Daisy said.

"Hey!" Tim said. "Those belong to the Archives! You can't just take our stuff!"

"I could confiscate it," Daisy said. "Pretty sure your Archives don't have any sort of permit."

There was…less than Jon had remembered, now that he was taking a second look at it. Maybe not even enough to blow up a building.

"You can all stop squabbling and share, children," Gerard said.

"Fine," Tim said.

"I'm pretty sure you're the youngest of the three of us," Daisy said. 

"That's beside the point," Gerard said. "We're friends now, you can help yourself. Don't worry, Tim." He grinned. "I've got a _lot_ more."

Right. Because Gertrude would never let herself be cut off from the ability to blow things to the sky. She probably had multiple stockpiles that Jon tried not to think too hard about the consequences of all three of his wayward Hunters now having access to. Gerard had managed not to wipe London from the map on his own, two more couldn't be that bad, could it?

"Let's just go," Jon said. "I think I hear Martin and Sasha."

The Hunters left the storage locker without taking— well, Gerard might have pocketed a single block of C4, but without taking enough explosives to make a serious dent in anything— and Jon locked it back up. Then he turned to see headlights that weren't shaped quite right to be Martin's car but were perfectly spaced to be a delivery van and indeed illuminated the nasty off-white panels and two hulking figured behind the windshield. 

" _Run_ ," Daisy growled in his ear, and for the second time in barely more than a week Jon sprinted off into the darkness with monsters on his heels. 

He let instinct guide him, but it was really all he could do not to get trapped in a corner, a dead end. But there were only so many lanes and the footsteps behind him seemed to always be getting heavier and even though he _knew_ he couldn't beat anyone in a footrace, he stumbled out onto the open road.

There was the blaring of a horn and a screeching halt and the smell of burning rubber as Martin managed to not run him over, but only barely. 

"Get in get in get in!" Martin shouted as Sasha threw the back door open and Jon hurled himself in and then Martin tried to floor it but the car just….wasn't having it. The thing had been on its last legs before this adventure and the silhouette either of Breekon or Hope — _Breekon_ , his brain oh-so-helpfully provided — was _still catching up_. 

Jon threw the skin as hard as he could out of the window with the hopes that Breekon would veer off and chase it instead. Breekon most decidedly did not.

"There! Turn!" Sasha shouted. 

Martin turned, although Jon didn't see what in particular they were turning for — it was off-road, but there was apparently a tunnel ahead that Sasha was hoping to be a faster route, or…?

Their car puttered to a stop and died only about five meters into the tunnel, and Jon turned around to peer out of the rear windshield and meet his fate head on, but instead of Breekon catching up to them it— 

It ran into an invisible wall? 

Jon blinked and the car disappeared, and Helen was standing in front of them with her hands curled around her hips, looking very pleased with herself. "What just happened?" Jon asked the not-a-tunnel around them.

"Hi honey!" Helen said, ignoring him completely, and walked up to Sasha, giving her a kiss on the crown of her head. Sasha blushed furiously. "Sorry I was late, painting took a bit longer than I thought it would."

"Painting?" Jon said.

"Painting the tunnel!" Helen said. "I saw it in Looney Tunes and decided that I just _had_ to try it. It was just as satisfying as I imagined it would be! I caught it all on tape, we can watch it and laugh."

"R—right," Jon said. "Um. Thank you. Would you happen to know where the others are?"

Helen snapped, and the scenery resolved itself into a comfortable living room, with a couch along one side, an armchair, and a loveseat all forming around a low table. The loveseat in particular caught both Jon and Martin behind the knees, never mind that they weren't standing in the right configuration for it, causing Jon to all but fall into Martin's lap. On perfect cue, three different doors opened from the walls, and Tim, Gerard, and Daisy stumbled in, panting. 

"Let me—" Daisy growled. 

"Calm down!" Gerard said, panting too but reining it in a bit better. "The plan worked! We were baiting them! We do _not_ want to fight them! They have the skin, you can take them down later!" 

Jon stared at the uneven rise and fall of Daisy's chest and wondered. Wondered if this was the moment when she would turn on them, when it was one push too far, if she would—

"Fine," she said. Jon sighed in relief. 

"Well, this is all very touching!" Helen said. "Any time any of you want to leave, a door will take you to where you want to be. I suppose Sasha and I could stay, but we _do_ have dinner plans, but— oh, we should have game night! Sasha, do you mind if we put our evening on pause for game night?"

"I would love a good game night," Sasha said. 

"Are we not— are we not worried about…questions being asked about how long we were in here?" Jon said. 

"Jon!" Helen said, sounding perfectly scandalized. "I gave you a statement and everything about how I can stretch time in here! I've even figured out closed timelike curves since then! There were some astrophysics grads that were _very_ helpful."

"What are…what are closed timelike curves?" Jon asked.

"Time travel," Jon said from the doorway, looking very, very tired. "She can do time travel. Only within the corridors, there's some sort of bullshit illogical continuity rules and she can't force time travel to have happened on the _outside_ but she has started doing it in here all the time. And remember these words to say back to you _exactly_ , please, you don't want to do multiple takes." 

He disappeared.

"Well!" Tim said. "Beautiful start to game night!"

"I've always wanted to get eaten by a monster and play board games in its stomach!" Gerry said. "Sash, you've been holding out on us!" 

Sasha blushed again, but she kept her head held perfectly high. 

"Not board games," Helen said. "I was thinking quiplash? Or maybe Apples to Apples, but, you know. The _raunchy_ one."

And Jon could see it, that tiny detail, and the look in Sasha's eyes shifted a bit more towards _love_. 

He leaned back, the steady beat of Martin's heart behind him, a night where they could— where he could _be_ in Martin's arms. With his friends smiling, laughing around him. With everything— everything working out alright. 

He loved them all so much.

Not a new realization, but— he loved them all so much. 

He allowed himself to be lulled into a happy stupor as everyone argued what game they were actually going to play, breathed in and out with the rise and fall of Martin's chest, and let the persona of Elias's Archivist that he didn't even know he'd been clutching slowly dissolve.

He was free of— of schemes, of long cons, of the Eye's gaze here. Just a not-so-quiet evening with his friends before they stopped the end of the world. He was allowed that. 

He had to be allowed that.

#-------#

Jon remembered very little of the Unknowing itself.

He tried to protest that there was no reason for Sasha to go, to which Sasha informed him that her girlfriend had been looking forward to this excuse to let loose and they'd been planning it as a date for months and she'd be showing up whether she drove over with the rest of them or took the corridors, and also, it wasn't particularly fair that he tell her to stay back and not Martin. To which he'd turned to Martin and Martin had just said "No" and he'd resigned himself to everyone putting themselves in an unnecessary amount of danger for a trip they were really only going on to give Tim closure. They'd piled into the two cars again — even Helen had materialized to squish into the backseat of Martin's next to Sasha, claiming that the carpool over was one of the most important parts of the experience, like how breakfast was the most important meal of the day. No matter who had the aux after that, the speakers would only play a series of truly horrific but impressive rap or pop set over classical music, and one song in particular that Jon was informed was called 'Anaconda at the Opera' and at his disgruntlement was played on loop for five minutes. 

The ride over was memorable. _Fun_ , even. But the Unknowing, Jon could remember almost none of. 

Tim ripped out Nikola's throat, ripped her face off, ripped her to pieces, ripped the Skin to pieces with his bare hands for good measure, that much Jon knew. The rest came in flashes. Gerard calmly taking mannequins down with an assortment of weapons. Helen on roller skates, effortlessly graceful and clearly having the time of her life. Sasha on Helen's shoulders, not so much jousting as knocking over figurine after figurine with a wooden lance that had somehow materialized between their walk from the car and the start of the ritual. Mannequins and wax figurines alike on roller skates, although they were stumbling around as if there was no friction whatsoever between said skates and the floor. Tim and Gerard over the remains of what must have been Dr. Elliott's last student, Tim dropping the apple with satisfaction plastered all over his face. 

The uncanniness of the Unknowing itself, the feeling of the world trying to rip itself a part and let something else — something he was _far_ too familiar with — through.

A snippet of something long and thin, with stick-like limbs, and the strong feeling of the Spiral.

And then it all crystalized in front of him: Hope, dead. Breekon, unchaining the coffin. _Daisy, disappearing down the steps._

Jon had warned her — he had _warned_ her to let someone else take care of Breekon and Hope, warned everyone about the coffin, but — he could almost hear his own voice mirrored back to him, speaking to Elias, _'and Daisy has the scent'_ — he should have _known better_ than to expect a Hunter to have really let someone else take care of the thing she'd been nursing a grudge against the longest. Breekon was also choking out its last breaths through a mostly torn out throat — what was it about Hunters and going for the throat? — so she'd at least done better this time. Gotten them both.

Either way, Jon was certainly not going to allow her to be trapped, not for a solid six months. He had gotten out before, he could get out again. He threw himself towards the coffin, nearly stumbling down the rough-hewn stone stairs. He could see her.

"Daisy!" he called down. " _Look at me._ "

And she stopped in her tracks, frozen in his gaze, as he was able to force himself down even as the air got heavier, reach out a hand and grasp hers without going in a single step further than he had to. He turned back up and — and he could still see the light. It was five meters, maybe twenty steps away, and it felt like an impossibly long distance but that couldn't be, Jon refused to let it be, the world was right there and his connection to it was stronger than it had ever been and against all odds they made it up a step. And another step, and another.

They were a dozen step away now.

And it was hard, oh, it was hard, Jon could feel the Buried trying to cling to them, but it didn't _have_ them, not in full, he'd gotten Daisy before she could go too deep in, before they lost sight of the light.

Which, of course, was far more hope than he should have ever dared to have.

There was a shudder, a creaking moan, and the slam of the lid above them and _the light was gone_ and suddenly they were in it in the full — dirt pressing around, crushing, he couldn't _breathe_ couldn't _see_ but he couldn't, wouldn't, let go of Daisy's hand, wouldn't lose her here—

Wouldn't lose _himself_ to the forever pressing horror of just being a worm in a tunnel, inching towards the memory of—

 _No,_ he thought. _This is mine. You are mine, and you cannot hold me, you cannot cut off the sight of the Beholder when the Beholding is all._

And he could feel it, feel it all, every single grain of dirt within the coffin, every single tunnel that it stretched around and to and through, cave systems and caverns and ghosts and all the poor souls trapped in here, the entire crust of the planet and the warm press of the mantle beneath it, he _saw_ everything, he _was_ everything—

The coffin burst open and he was but three steps from the light, and he didn't waste a single second. Still clinging to Daisy like a lifeline he flung himself out and yanked her along with him.

They were in the Archives. Tim, Martin, and Sasha were staring nervously at the coffin; Tim slammed the lid down and began to chain it up the moment Jon and Daisy were both clear. Daisy seemed a lot worse for wear than Jon was, but it was a bit hard to tell, because Basira had also apparently been brought in and she'd burst into tears and grabbed Daisy immediately. Daisy seemed perfectly content to allow herself to be subjected to Basira's embrace.

"That," Jon croaked, "is why we don't go near the coffin." 

Daisy burst into laughter, the ugly kind with snot and an edge of crying, but she was still breathing. They were still breathing. Tim was still breathing. They'd _made_ it. 

"Does anyone want some tea?" Martin said, wringing his hands, and Jon could read it in his eyes, _are you alright._

"That would be lovely," Jon said. What he meant was, _I love you. We can do this. I love you._

He couldn't say it. But something in Martin's tentative smile made him think that Martin had at least still gotten the message. So everything was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helen Richardson says gay math rights, sorry I don't make the rules 
> 
> and yes Jon uses memes from the future he got used to Melanie and the others using them around the Archives 'go off I guess' is March 2018 he _knows that one_
> 
> feel free to come scream at me as always on tumblr [@ savrenim](https://savrenim.tumblr.com/). updates are likely to be a bit slower as I am teaching as a full course instructor for the first half of the summer, but do not worry this fic is in no danger of being abandoned.


	7. Midas is king

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please trust the tags on this fic

Jon's tea sat on the edge of the desk. His hands were shaking, so he was rather glad that he'd put it down. 

"What are you talking about?"

"You were in there for two weeks," Martin repeated.

"We were— we were in there for— it must have been fifteen minutes, at most," Jon said. "It got— it got _bad_ when the light went away but we were always within twenty steps of the entrance."

"You really weren't, mate," Tim said. "We tried opening it a few times to see if we could even _see_ you. Had to chain ourselves up and after we nearly lost Basira anyway, Helen forbade it. But you and Daisy were _gone_."

Jon stared at Daisy helplessly. "We—"

"I don't know how long it was," she said. "Didn't feel like fifteen minutes."

"I'm so, so sor—"

"No," she growled. "You came into that hellhole to rescue me. You do _not_ get to tell me you're _sorry_ because the rescue took a bit longer than you thought." She was breathing almost as heavily as Jon was. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd been there alone."

"Jon."

Jon turned to Martin.

"It's okay. You tried your best. You _succeeded._ " 

Jon just stared miserably at the whole tableau. 

"We're going to head home," Basira said, her voice a bit sharp, and Daisy, still in her arms, did not contradict her. Jon supposed that there was nothing in her interactions with the Archives and the Institute to merit a softening of tone. "We'll check in later."

"I know that face, stop beating yourself up," Tim said. "You did good. The Unknowing went off without a hitch, and Daisy isn't in the coffin. Everything's been smooth here, boss."

"The Unknowing," Jon said. "Right, I need to…I should report to Elias about the Unknowing."

His assistants all made very clear exactly how much they liked that idea with their faces, but it wasn't about them, he had a _facade_ to keep up. His tea was forgotten. When Martin would notice it two hours later, it would have long since gone cold.

#-------#

Elias looked at Jon rather disdainfully as Jon stepped into his office, which wasn't fair; Jon made use of the change of clothes that he'd stowed for the nights that he stayed in the Archives, and had brushed all of the dirt off that he could in the employee bathroom, so it really wasn't more than a bit of dust that he was tracking onto the floor.

"I stopped the Unknowing," Jon said. "Managed to do it without losing any Assistants either, which gives me a better track record than my predecessor. I want to plan a ritual." 

Elias raised an eyebrow. "You really don't waste time, do you?"

"I have learned that if a group of angry Hunters rips out everyone's throats mid-ritual, the ritual is going to fail. And I— I _felt_ it," Jon said. "I _felt_ the Stranger trying to come through. It was— it was the antithesis of what _we_ are but it still— I want to _feel_ that again. I need to know more. Gertrude's tapes about the other rituals aren't enough. But I don't know where to _start_ with other research."

"Hm. Well, I do," Elias said. "There was another ritual that failed right before you began your tenure as Archivist. The Dark's ritual. It was centered in Ny-Ålesund, on the total solar eclipse. There might be a good place to go and start asking questions."

"I— good. Alright. I'll go there. How am I getting there?" Jon said.

"I _had_ gotten you tickets," Elias said. "And then you went and dived into the Buried and no one knew if or when you were coming out."

"R—right," Jon said. "I really did only think it would take a few minutes, I— I would have been more careful if I'd known it would be two weeks, but it worked out fine."

" _Why_ did you go in at all, Archivist?" Elias asked. 

Jon crossed his arms.

"I— the Unknowing was…confusing," he said. "There were only— certain pieces of information that I could keep in my mind. Like how I warned _someone_ not to go in and— I— the danger was harder to remember than the immediate sense of needing to get Daisy _out_."

"How did you get out?" Elias said. "Don't get me wrong, I'm proud, but I'm also curious. I haven't heard of anyone else escaping before."

"It— if you're not fully down the stairs, it can't fully hold you," Jon said. "And I'm— well, I'm not just my body anymore, am I? I'm every statement, every Fear I've ever read. And those are— people and tapes and _stories_ that exist outside of the Buried. It couldn't pull all of them in, so it had to spit me out. That's— that's my guess, at least. But it feels right." 

"Hmm," Elias hummed. "Well. That bodes well for us."

"It…does?" Jon said.

"It does," Elias said. "The power of the Eye waxing, if the Archivist can escape from the Buried directly. I'll have Rosie re-book your tickets. You don't need an…escort, do you? It might be difficult to ask the sort of questions that you want if Hunters are glued to your tail."

Jon shivered. He'd expected this, but— the closer they got to the end, the more alone he would be. "N—no, I don't. Need the escort, that is. I'm fine on my own."

Elias smiled. "Glad to hear it."

#-------#

It was a six day voyage, and Jon's ship left on Wednesday, which gave him a day and a half to pack and prepare. Elias gave him Manuela's statement to read over prior, and told him to take the day to rest and prepare. Jon decided to liberally interpret this as 'bunker down in his Archive, delegate general Archival tasks to his Assistants and drink an unending stream of herbal tea Martin kept delivering' instead of the 'go home' that Elias almost certainly meant. He read over Manuela's statement carefully, first silently, then to an ever-present recorder. He didn't see anything in it that he'd _missed_ the previous time: the same pride, the same animosity, the same cultist devotion to the Dark. He didn't think much of it.

That night, he dreamed of the Daedalus.

It was smaller than he would have expected, _cramped_ , that was the first thing that struck him. The second thing that struck him was he seemed to still be feeling gravity, and the moment he noticed that perhaps he shouldn't be, the gravity was gone, which was rather disconcerting in a dreamscape where nothing felt quite real. 

Manuela was on the other side of what must have been her— laboratory? workroom? She was in a blue jumpsuit, her dark hair pulled into a tight bun, her hands moving fast and clever across a number of instruments that Jon knew he could know the purpose of if he wanted. 

He watched, silently. 

It took her less than a minute to notice, to push herself off the wall, grabbing a handle that was most certainly installed for weightless navigation without needing to look where it was, and torquing perfectly towards him. As such, Jon was surprised when she started upon actually _seeing_ him, losing her grip and floating towards the center of the room untethered. She gave an undignified little squeak at the whole situation. Jon took it in, expressionless.

"Fuck you," she hissed. "Who the fuck are you, the Watcher can't feed on me, I'm not _afraid_ of you, I'm not afraid of _this_ , this was my greatest achievement!" The dream flickered, Dark gathered, and she was no longer in the middle of an empty room, but rather there was a small stand with a roiling ball of darkness suspended where she had just been floating, and she hovered to the side of it. 

"This— this is our triumph. You can— you can _try_ to Look at me but I am the Dark and you— you will go _blind_." She seemed to gain more steam as she spoke. "This is—this is _my_ head so it's _my_ domain, get— get out or I'll—" Her gaze fell on the nascent dark star. "I'll wield it at you!"

Jon was physically incapable of doing anything but watching but refrained admirably from trying to roll his eyes anyways. 

Manuela still shrieked, and there was a rush of power and a thin, sharp sliver of pain, and everything went black. Jon woke up feeling groggy and with a bit of a headache, the sort of strange feeling brought on by sleep deprivation feeling of cotton in his mouth, and shrugged it off, grabbed his travel bag, and boarded the ship.

There wasn't much to do other than watch waves on deck. Still, it was calming to be able to just…clear his mind. Not think about what was waiting for him at Ny-Ålesund, or what was waiting for him after.

The next night he dreamed again.

"You again?" Manuela snarled. She didn't waste any time, she turned the Dark Sun on him.

He blinked awake, in his cabin on the ship, for all of half a moment before he was forcibly plunged back to sleep again, which was _unpleasant_ to say the least, like being doused in a bucket of ice water and breathing in the pure _cold_. 

"W—what? But I just—" Her brow wrinkled in concentration. "Let's do this again."

There was another rush of darkness, and he plunged awake into the dim light of his room, then back asleep.

"You just don't take no for an answer, do you?" 

There was an interesting screech that accompanied her usage of the Dark Sun, like beneath the thunderous avalanche of nothingness was a thousand distant screams. He flinched, died, woke up, and immediately fell asleep again. 

"Oh, does it hurt? Well there's one way to make it stop."

The darkness came again, and he flashed back to the world of the waking for another moment, then returned.

"I can do this all night."

It turned out that she could not, in fact, do it all night. She got tired after doing it precisely fifty-three times, Jon could see it when she slumped down in resignation instead of smiting him again. 

"If you won't go, I won't _do_ anything for you," she said. "I'm not your _private entertainment_ , if you're going to force yourself into my head I'm not giving you anything to Watch."

The two of them sat in silence until she— he— they both? woke normally come morning. 

It didn't stop him from dreaming again the next night. 

She just sighed when she saw him. "What do you _want_? Is this just my— new life now?"

Jon shrugged. 

"You— _you—_ "

He wanted to open his mouth and say 'what', but found that he couldn't. 

"You _shrugged_ at me!"

Jon nodded. 

"Aren't you… aren't you not supposed to interact?"

Jon shrugged. 

Manuela watched him carefully, weighing him like a predator would weigh a rival.

"Does this mean you felt as much pain as it sounded like you were every time I banished you?" she asked.

Jon considered it for a moment. It had been… mildly unpleasant, sure, but at this point he'd dealt with so much pain that a bit of dream-Dark really wasn't that upsetting. On the other hand, Manuela looked very invested in any of her actions having mattered. 

He nodded.

"Liar."

He shrugged.

"You're not very good at this, are you."

Jon raised a hand and made a so-so gesture. 

"So I'm stuck with you and killing you doesn't hurt you."

Jon nodded. 

And then for some reason, Manuela laughed. Jon tried to raise an eyebrow, ask the question with his face, and—

"It's just, you look just as unhappy as me about that fact." 

Jon made another so-so gesture. 

"I did my best work here, you know," she said. "Dark energy. Dark matter. Dark radiation. My _experiments_ would make you flinch away, but I didn't flinch. I and I alone have pushed the boundaries of light, darkness, and fear. Do you _know_ what it took to produce the necessary gravitational lensing effect on our Black Star?"

Jon blinked, attempting to look as interested as he could. 

"But _not_ for you," she said. "I'm _not_ giving you anything."

He nodded as seriously as he could, and then pushed all of his focus into turning to the little port window in the room. He peered out of it. He couldn't see the earth or stars, not really, because Manuela's memories of the view outside the station were fuzzy, but it didn't matter. It was still beautiful. He focused on it single-mindedly. 

After perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, he heard noise behind him; a shuffle, perhaps a cabinet door opening and closing? He resolutely did not look, and for the next of the night, got used to the sounds of Manuela performing her experiments to his back.

The next night, they were no longer on the Daedalus. Their surroundings were more familiar: a small classroom, the sort of place that the least important recitations were shoved in and out of everyone's way and mind. There was a blackboard that had some scratches across it and clear places that simply had not erased and looked like they might never, and far too many chairs and desks crammed into the space. It was hot, and barely half a breeze was coming in through the window, even with a half-broken fan ostensibly helping it but mostly just generating noise. 

A dozen students sat in a fugue, facing towards the board, eyes clearly not following anything that was happening. And with a bright enthusiasm, completely ignoring the mood of the room, a younger version of Manuela with square glasses and mousy hair excitedly outlined the Stefan–Boltzmann law.

An older Manuela and Jon stood, watching her.

"Why are we here?" Manuela said. "Aren't we— aren't I supposed to be re-living my fears for you? Trapped in my own experiences? I wasn't _scared_ here. I was young and stupid and hadn't seen the truth yet but these— life was simple back then, I— I lived with Raul and Jemma and we'd complain about the assholes we had to TA for, talk about all the— all the breakthroughs that we'd make, how we'd take the physics community by storm. Eating Raul's shitty ramen. Cobbling together study guides for quals. Breaking onto our apartment's roof during the summer heat waves and looking at the stars. I— I published my first paper when I was still pre-qualifying, did you know that? I was good enough to have still done research. These— these were great days, maybe the best days of my—"

She cut herself off.

"No. No, they weren't. It was before I had the People's Church. Nothing— nothing was good before I found the Church. We were— I was dirt poor. I was terrified of making budget every month and worse of having to crawl back to my parents on my hands and knees because I knew they wouldn't help. I was— Raul was sweet on me and I was _terrified_ that he'd bring it up and the shitty little apartment and skeevy landlord and cheap rent would all come toppling down because we needed three to keep the place. I was— over and over again I was— overlooked, or asked if I was going into _teaching_ , asked about if I had plans for a family and warned about how that would affect my academic career, as if— as if I weren't _invisible_ , as if the single conference I saved up enough to go to everyone consistently assumed that I was— _just staying at the hotel_ and asked if I was lost as I tried to find the lectures but at least I didn't get asked if I was the _staff_ , that happened to Jemma once. I— academia, and its— its racism and sexism and _publish or perish_ and treatment of anyone not tenured like they'd just _fodder_ and the number of all-nighters I pulled because I _believed_ them, I believed that my worth could only be measured by what I produced and I— I _still_ always felt like a child fumbling in the dark."

Her chest was heaving as she finished. She and Jon stared at the younger her, smiling at the board, for a moment. Younger her glanced back at her previous work, noticed an error in an equation, and hopped over to fix it, before returning and pointing at the result that she was lecturing on. The light in her eyes was real.

"Look at me, talking to you about this," Manuela said. "This isn't me. This wasn't my choice, this isn't my life. Just a— a momentary stumbling block as I was finding my way."

Jon smiled.

She smiled back. "I was _damn_ good at it, though."

The next night, they were in a hospital. A woman with Manuela's cheekbones, a man with her nose, her hair, were lying side by side in two beds, monitors beeping quietly in the background. A younger version of Manuela, asleep on the chair in the corner. 

For a long time, Manuela didn't say anything.

"I should have known," she whispered finally. "I should have _known_ this wasn't a kindness, I should have known that you weren't here to—"

Jon reached his hand across time and space and touched her, took hers, held her hand.

She broke down sniffling, wiping her eyes furiously with the palm of her other hand. "They were bad. They were really, really bad. They were petty and vindictive and they didn't care about anyone but themselves. They hated me and I hated what they were trying to mould me into. I wanted— they didn't deserve to go peacefully, they deserved to—"

Her words gave way to quiet sobs.

Jon waited.

"I just wanted them to finally be more afraid of me than I was of them," Manuela said. "I don't think I even got that, in the end."

The next night, they were in her childhood bedroom. An eight-year-old Manuela laid stomach down on her bed, legs swinging, deeply engaged in what looked like a scientific picture book she was reading. 

"Now that's just _rude_ ," Manuela said, her voice scratchy. 

Jon tried to make a face.

"Manuela! Come down for dinner! Hurry! You're supposed to be setting the table!" came a woman's voice from down the stairs.

"I'm coming!" kid-Manuela shouted, carefully marking the spot in her book then hiding it under her pillow, and heading for the door. The adult Manuela sighed and walked towards the bed. Jon stayed perched on the windowsill.

Manuela smoothed down the bedsheets, pushed her pillow aside, reverently traced the words on the cover, a title that Jon was too far away to read but the bright, cartoonish sun and planets he could see just fine in the dim light. She began to leaf through it, pretending to study the pages. 

"My entire childhood was one long war with them, you know," she said. "I say I had controlling parents, who wanted to— to shape me into the person they thought I should be, and everyone nods, says all parents are like that. Did you— did you know when they found this book my mother called my school's library to tell them to ban me from coming in during recess? Because they were 'worried that I wasn't getting enough fresh air and exercise'. They— I wasn't scared of them, not really, I was scared that— I was scared that one day I'd be worn down, I'd give in, I'd just become what they'd wanted me to be and lose what was me. My mother especially, my father would bluster but she would _act_."

She closed the book, and turned back to Jon. "Do you know what that feels like? To have— to have the person with absolute power in your life, an— an authority figure that you're supposed to be looking up to, want to just— mould you into a tool, a continuation of their ideology? When you don't even believe what—"

The scene went dark. The world didn't fully reform, instead, as if they were in a blackbox theater with a single spotlight, a sliver of a memory slipped into the light:

Maxwell Rayner, at a door. "Oh, you came! I _thought_ you had potential, but I wasn't sure if you'd—"

Maxwell Rayner, Manuela at his elbow, saying, "And for a graduate student from your background, that really was an impressive talk, dear, you show a nuanced understanding—"

Maxwell Rayner, helping a shaking Manuela wearing dark initiates' robes. "Of course you feel fear, you are a creature of the light, which makes you as it makes us all contemptible and corrupt, that your fear might be a cleansing and a communion—" 

A slightly older Manuela, sitting in what looked like a dingy little office with Maxwell. "—made interesting progress, but I really don't see what you'd be accomplishing taking another research position—"

Another day in the office, Manuela standing by the window, Maxwell still at the desk. "—if you are committed to this Church and to the Dark then it is time that you quit and move in—"

"—for a girl in your position, finding your way here alone, the _progress_ that you've made, is all very impressive. That's why I think you're ready for the next step—"

"—your level of thinking here is childish, this paper is—"

"—of course you can't understand—"

"—to be blind isn't a blessing, simply because one cannot feel the heat, does not mean that their flesh does not burn—"

"—you can help, more than anyone else on this Earth. That knowledge you gained in defiance of the Dark could finally be put to use—"

"—we _need_ you, only you can—"

"—you _must_ —"

"Stop!" Manuela said. "Please! Please stop!"

She was sitting alone in a room, a world, a universe of darkness, Jon next to her, a small pool of unnatural light around him. 

"I don't want to see this anymore," she said. "I don't want you here anymore. Please leave."

The next night, Jon didn't dream.

The next day, he arrived.

#-------#

Jon didn't bother to ask for directions from the dock to the research station; if Elias wondered why he knew, he could claim God or Google Maps, whichever he felt more like at the moment. He didn't— he wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. He didn't need to. So he didn't.

He moved by memory to a room he knew was correct. There was the faintest sense of presence and—

Jon switched his torch off. "I am Jonathan Sims," he said. "I'm the new Archivist. I come in peace. Just to talk."

"You call what you _did_ to me peace?" Manuela said somewhere from the dark.

"I— I'm sorry," Jon said. "I was given your statement to read before I came here. It happens sometimes to the statement-givers, that I'll appear in their dreams. I— I don't control it. I'm— I'm sorry for any…distress? I might have caused you. It— it usually doesn't get so personal, just— just scenes from the statement, but your statement, well—"

"Do whatever you came here to do, Archivist," Manuela said. "Just get it over with." 

"I, um," Jon said. "I was sent here to ask you about your ritual. I don't… I don't actually need to do that. I was hoping you might let me look at the Dark Sun, though."

"What, didn't get enough of me killing you with it in the dreamscape?" Manuela said.

"I've died a few times," Jon said. "I always seem to come back. It's very troublesome."

There was a long silence. 

"You're not going to ask me where it is?" Manuela said. 

"I— my friends tell me that compelling people is very rude so I try to do it as little as possible," Jon said. "Especially when… well, when no one can be _watching_ to _see_ that I'm not— not the perfect Archivist they want me to be. You've— you've been through enough. I'm not going to compel it out of you. You can tell me if you want, or…the aura is fairly strong. I'll just wander around in the dark, feeling out which way seems darker."

"It's just through that door, behind me," Manuela said. "You _will_ die. Only Maxwell, Natalie, and myself can— could ever even look at it. It will annihilate you in an instant."

It might have been a more convincing threat if Jon hadn't already _seen_ the thing, but no, even the first time around, it hadn't frightened him. At least, not enough to stop him from looking.

He carefully closed the door on his way back.

"Thank you," he said. "That was very beautiful. E—everything else aside, you made something very beautiful."

Manuela looked surprised that he was still alive. "Is it gone?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. 

"Then it's over," she said.

"Sometimes that can be a good thing. Would— would you like to…leave?" Jon said. "Maybe get— coffee? Or lunch? Be two— two people for an afternoon?"

Manuela snorted. "To deliver me to an enemy? Wouldn't matter. They can just walk in here now. I'd rather spend my last few hours in the dark."

"What do you mean?" Jon said, and even though he was getting better at controlling it, a part of him wanted _to know_ too much and it came out with a hint of the compulsion. "I— sorry, sorry, not asking the question, I— I am curious what you mean."

"You've all but killed me, 'Jonathan Sims'," Manuela said. "You carved enough of my faith out of me, to sever my connection to the Dark. And then you walked in here and destroyed the artifact that was flooding this place with power, keeping things too scared to even _try_ to break in and— the People's Church had a lot of enemies. They'll know. They'll come. They'll kill me."

"N—no," Jon said. "I—"

"It was masterful, what you did," Manuela said. "Gertrude was _efficient_ , but she lacked a certain elegance. But just the— the casual pressure of letting me _know_ what— _know_ the— the parallels you wanted me to see— all you have to do was _watch_."

" _I will not watch you die,_ " Jon said.

"Then _what_?" Manuela said. "What are you going to do with me? Haven't you done _enough_? I will not trade one chain for another, I am not interested in what _you_ want to mould me to—"

"Uh, Manuela?" Jon said. "I think someone else has, um, an offer."

In the darkness gleamed a yellow door, perfectly visible. 

"The Spiral wants to eat me," Manuela said flatly. "I— why the _Spiral_?"

"That would be Helen," Jon said. "She's a friend. And a very reasonable person, so long as you keep your personal belongings hidden. If we go and see what she has to say she'll have disconcertingly perfect tea and will drop us off wherever we want when we want to leave."

"You think that?" Manuela said.

"I know it," Jon said. 

She sighed again. "You go through the door first."

Jon opened it, and stepped forward. He was suddenly in a lovely little courtyard, identical but _more_ than the one Helen had taken him to before. There were potted trees whose branches seemed to be just a little bit too geometric, and the table that they'd sat at before was empty, with a large umbrella casting half of it into unnaturally pitch-darkness.

Manuela was gone from Jon's side and in the patch of shadow before he could blink. Jon walked over at a bit more reasonable of a pace, and sat across from her. A tea and a coffee appeared on the table from nothing.

"So this is what the Spiral is up to these days?" Manuela said.

"She has a study hall where people who are confused about their studies— mostly maths— go and just… be confused until they figure out what they need to figure out, then she lets them back out," Jon said.

"You're _shitting_ me."

Jon put on his best affronted face, the one that he used when Tim bragged about his position on the 'Archival Monthly Crime Count' board. "I am completely and utterly serious."

Manuela snorted. "And what people just walk through the door willingly? How stupid are they?"

"It is a very pleasant study hall that warps time, will not allow you to become tired and hungry, gives you access past every paywall and an infinite supply of practice exams, and you just stay as long as you need to study or complete your assignments. And then lets you leave whenever you want and less than an hour will have passed outside," Jon said. "They're posting guides on how to summon her."

"Ah," Manuela said. "That's…yeah, I would have done that when I was in uni without hesitation."

"I think we all would have, that's kind of the point," Jon said.

"So the Spiral is just….no longer evil?" Manuela asked.

"As far as I can tell, the worst thing she has done in her entire tenure of the Distortion is steal my cell phone," Jon said.

"Oh now that's not fair at all!" Helen said, and both Jon and Manuela nearly jumped out of their skins.

"Give some _warning_ the next time you—" Jon said.

"Did you even _check_ your bank account?" Helen continued. "You got backpay for every single cell phone bill you'd ever paid. It's not stealing if I pay for it."

Jon sighed. "Manuela, meet Helen. Helen, this is Manuela Dominguez."

"So I suppose this is where we begin to discuss salary and room and board?" Helen said.

"What?" Manuela said, looking as confused as a blob of darkness could.

(That was unfair; Jon could see her hands shaking in the shadow as she clutched at the coffee cup that had appeared for her.)

"Jon didn't fill you in?" Helen said. "Jon, that is very rude of you."

"I have no idea what is happening right now," Jon said.

Helen gave him a strange look. "The hall _isn't enough_ ," she said. "Some of my students are…stuck in enough of a rut that they can't get out of it by themselves, and it…it leaves a very rotten taste when they just _give up_. So I'm trying out a new program. I've been letting them help each other but sometimes it's really the blind leading the blind. What I _need_ is someone who is good enough at physics to teach the undergrad physics courses and calculus sequence to hire as a full-time tutor to oversee the workshop rooms and run the students through problems. I am aware that you are perhaps in need of protection as well as a new gig right now. I can provide room and board either here within the Spiral, or if you would prefer an apartment outside to maintain a…connection to the outside world, I can layer it with protections such that no one will get in without going through a yellow door. As for your rates… honestly, I don't care. Human currency is incredibly easy for me to manipulate. I'm doing very well in the stock market right now. So really, the negotiation is you naming a price."

"You want me to…tutor…the students you are eating," Manuela said. 

"If you would like to consistently be surrounded by a creepy dark cloud as you work out problems on the blackboards that would also be very nice," Helen said. "I _am_ supposed to be upkeeping a mysterious and spooky vibe." 

"You want me to spookily solve problems for uni kids at a blackboard," Manuela said.

"Yes," Helen said.

"And in return you will give me room and board here, or an apartment that you personally will protect, and personally protect me every time I want to leave it, and provide me with as much money as I want—"

"Helen," Jon said under his breath, shooting her a significant look.

"I suppose I shouldn't completely upturn the human economy, let's…let's cap it at a quarter million pounds a year?" Helen said. 

"I…why are you doing this?" Manuela asked.

"The happiest time of your life was when you were a graduate student, working towards your doctorate, finally pursuing _your own path_ , wasn't it?" Helen said. "And now you don't know where to go to move forward. That's not your path anymore, but it's as good a place as any to start as you look for a new one."

"I…"

"Also I really, _really_ like the aesthetic of a creepy blob of darkness doing math problems on a blackboard," Helen said. "Once it was suggested to me I simply could not bring myself to picture it happening _any_ other way, and none of the other tutors I've been trying to hire have been able to hold up to that very well."

Manuela looked at Jon, then back to Helen. "I…I'll take the job."

"Magnificent!" Helen said, with the smile of a cat who had caught a canary. "Well, I'll leave you two to say your goodbyes, then Jon, that door will drop you back off at the Archives." With a faint pop she vanished, and a yellow door appeared in her place.

"So…" Jon could all but _hear_ Manuela biting her lip. "This is it? You…leave and go back to your Archives, and I stay here?"

"I…I guess?" Jon said.

"And I just…this is my life now," Manuela said. "I'm a physics tutor for the Spiral."

"It…seems like it?" Jon said.

"That— that doesn't seem like something that is very… you don't seem like the typical servant of the Beholding," Manuela said. "Didn't really come to take my statement and watch the rest."

"I'm really— I'm just trying to— to make sure that everyone else survives, this time," Jon said. "I've seen a lot of ways to end the world and they're not pretty. But it also—" He cut himself off with a huff of air because the words were so hard to _find_. 

"What?" Manuela said.

"Have you ever… have you ever dreamed of what humanity could be?" Jon asked. "I guess that's— I guess that's a stupid question, I've seen your dreams of the Dark, but just… before that. Did you ever… did you ever picture a world where we'd… where life was the single most precious thing? Where we'd figured out green energy, or space travel, but mostly— mostly communication and _peace_ and there was— no— no hatred or fear, where it— where just— where everything— everything that is an _atrocity_ here and now can seem petty and small and so, so far away, where we all lived— existed on such a different _level_ that this constant struggle, scrambling around in the dirt, it— it could all just be beyond our knowledge, beyond our understanding, why people would hurt each other."

"I do not get where you're going with this," Manuela said.

"Sorry, I— honestly I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time," Jon said. "I just… I want to cause as little harm as possible. To help as many people as I can along the way. If— from the perspective of a world where— where we reach _that_ , it's— every life lost, every person that is— that we decide is— beyond _saving_ , it seems like… like an unfathomable tragedy. An abrupt ending of a story that should have— that should keep going. I don't— I never wanted to _interfere_ with those stories but if someone doesn't interfere they're all going to end and that's worse."

"So you…genuinely want to save the world?" Manuela said. "That is…a bit _much_ , coming from an Avatar. Especially when your version of 'saved' doesn't really sound like a world under the Eye. It sounds like transhumanist _bullshit_."

"I…I don't know. I never did before. Want to save the world, that is." He laughed. "I guess trauma changes people? I've seen the worst it can be, now I want to see the best."

"…be careful out there," Manuela said. "There are a lot of people who won't agree with you."

"I know," Jon said. "You, uh, you too. And it, uh…I…I am genuinely sorry that I severed your connection with the Dark. I, um… it's up to you, but you seemed to also see some really beautiful things in there. You can remember beautiful things without having them be spoiled by a terrible person. So if you…if you still love it, I don't think you're cut off entirely from it. Just from how you used to access it."

Manuela smiled, soft, but Jon could see it, even in the dark. "Thanks, Jon." 

"Right, well. I should probably go," he said.

"I'll…see you around?" Manuela said.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, you will."

#-------#

There was a moment where— where Jon was sure that he was in the tunnels, beneath the Institute. But that— that couldn't have happened. Helen— the Spiral— Helen let him find his own way but he'd— he'd taken a door to the Archives.

He hadn't lost any time. It was just— a strange flash, that was all. He put it out of his mind.

#-------#

"How was your trip?" Elias asked.

"Quite nice," Jon said. "Very interesting. Manuela was very nice, although Helen did eat her in the end."

"I assume that is why you did not use your ticket home?" Elias said. _And are back a week early_ didn't need to be spoken. 

"Mm. She's really quite pushy about the whole friendship thing, and I don't like being away from my Archives for long," Jon said. "It seemed like a perfectly innocent offer to take her up on."

"You're awfully blase about walking into that yellow door," Elias said. "If the Distortion wanted to trap you—"

"She won't, though," Jon said.

"Because she's your friend?" Elias asked. 

"Because I'm not scared of her," Jon said. "Makes it both rather pointless for her to try to keep me, and rather easy for me to find a door. Although…"

"Although what?" Elias said.

"Well, Daisy pointed out back in January that I don't have very many friends, and I haven't stopped thinking about it," Jon said. "Helen has made it very clear that she considers me her friend. I could try to convince her otherwise, or I could just…not. It's very nice to have a person who is so…unexpectedly reliable. I think I _would_ call her a friend."

"You _trust_ her?" Elias said.

"I…that's neither here nor there," Jon said.

He knew he wasn't convincing enough by the way Elias arched an eyebrow at him. "Trust can be a dangerous thing, Archivist. Especially with the _Spiral_."

Jon laughed. "I know."

"I just don't like—"

"I _know_ ," Jon said. "I'm surrounded by a gaggle of Hunters that have mostly finished taking down the targets they've been focusing on for years, and now a Distortion that is rapidly growing in power, and they all have crisscrossing personal agendas, and I'm really— yes, I helped them all out in minor fashions, but I'm _well_ aware of how short-lived the goodwill of people can be. They'll stay as long as they'll stay. They're not distractions. It's just good to have allies. _They_ trust _me_ , and that's what matters, right? I talked to Manuela, I have my report on the Dark's ritual."

"Fine," Elias said. "What are your thoughts?"

"I think the rituals are failing on their own." Jon kept his breathing even, and met Elias's— _Jonah's_ — eyes. There was no surprise there.

"Interesting," Elias said. "How did you come to that conclusion?"

"Manuela seemed to think that given the timing of Gertrude's disappearance, that Gertrude must have tried to stop the Dark's ritual and died in the process, but that…it doesn't _feel_ right," Jon said. "If Gertrude stopped their ritual, they would have _known_ that she stopped their ritual. I…subtlety did not seem to be her strongest suit? Copious amounts of explosives, but not subtlety."

"Oh?"

"I mean if you—" And Jon _hated_ this, hated the scrutiny. "If you asked me for evidence, to point at why, I guess…she had so much information, plans, things she was gathering about the Unknowing? And absolutely nothing about the Dark? But it's not…I don't think it was for a logical reason, it doesn't _feel_ like the truth." 

"Interesting," Elias said. "Well, are you going to ask?"

Jon took a deep breath.

" _Do you know what happened to Gertrude Robinson?_ "

"Yes."

Jon rubbed the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes. "Will you tell me?"

"If you ask," Elias said. 

"I am _trying_ to be polite," Jon said. 

"Who has been attempting to muzzle you so, that you won't use your rightful abilities?" Elias mused. "I'm not here to play games with you, Archivist. if you want to be treated as an equal and a confidante, demand it."

" _What. Happened. To Gertrude Robinson?_ " 

" _Good,_ " Elias said. "I shot her."

"Why?" Jon asked.

"Because she was going to burn the Magnus Institute down, and kill me," Elias said. "She had never been a very good Archivist, and certainly never a servant of the Beholding. She decided that we were most at risk for the next ritual, and to take care of it herself. So I took care of her."

"And she did nothing to stop the Dark?" Jon asked.

"She did nothing to stop the Dark," Elias confirmed.

"Why?" Jon asked.

"Because she had come to the same conclusion as you, that the ritual would fail on its own," Elias said. "She wanted to test it." 

"So how do we make our ritual _not_ fail?" Jon said.

"And now you finally ask the right question." Elias smiled, slow and languid. "If it wasn't Gertrude stopping it — if everything did indeed go perfectly right — why do _you_ think the Dark ritual failed?"

There was a pause. Jon was not unaware— they _both_ were not unaware— that Elias hadn't answered the question, not really. That when Jon was compelling him, Jonah was _allowing_ himself to be compelled.

It didn't matter. It was all a part of the dance.

"If something wasn't going wrong on this side, it had to have gone wrong on the other side," Jon said. 

"And what might have gone wrong?" Elias asked.

"Everyone…every ritual talks about bringing across their Fear, and then maybe one or two allies, once the world is changed, but that… that doesn't make sense, does it?" Jon said. "The Fears can't be separated. To try to pull only one through— you get pullback. For a ritual to work, you'd need to try to pull all Fourteen at once." 

"That is the conclusion I came to as well," Elias said. "Knowing that, Archivist, do you still want to attempt a ritual?"

There was another pause. Jon could feel Elias trying to look into his head. He knew that the only thing looking back was pure Beholding.

"Yes," Jon said.

"Good," Elias said. "If we're going to do this, you will be central to the plans." 

"So you have plans?" Jon said.

"Yes," Elias said.

"Wiill you… tell them to me?" Jon said.

"We've been through this, Archivist," Elias said.

"Are we not working together?" Jon said. "I thought you said cooperation was rare and should be treasured. Should I _not_ have a measure of trust for you?"

"I am starting to be worried that you have an overabundance of trust, _Archivist,_ " Elias said. "An over-willingness to declare someone a friend or ally and take them on their word from then on. _Break that habit._ When you no longer need to learn, you will no longer have to ask for what you want to know."

" _Fine,_ " Jon said. "What are your plans?"

"The ritual must be centered around a conduit for all the powers, not just the Eye," Elias said. "If a mark of each is present in the ritual, it can bring them all through." 

"Do you already have someone in mind?" Jon asked.

Elias raised an eyebrow. Too late, Jon realized that he hadn't specified that the conduit was to be a person.

"I do," he said.

"Who— no, wait," Jon said.

"Oh?" Elias said.

"I think it should be me," Jon said.

" _Why?_ " 

"You need a strong connection to the Beholding if you want the Beholding to be central," Jon said. "That means you need someone who works in the Archives. Tim is already too closely aligned with the Hunt, which leaves myself, Martin, and Sasha. 

"Martin and Sasha both were involved with Prentiss. They tried to help with some of the details of the Unknowing and so… encountered the Circus when we went to fetch the Skin. We escaped through Helen's corridors. so depending on how impactful that was, they have each collected at most at Four out of Fourteen.

"I had a… childhood encounter with the Web. I faced Prentiss directly. I also alone nearly suffocated in that whole debacle, which neatly takes care of the End. Helen has imposed her friendship on me rather directly, I think the Spiral has well marked me. Daisy was Hunting me for a few months there. I _personally_ witnessed the Unknowing from its center. I climbed in and out of the Buried. I stared into the Dark Sun myself. That's Nine of the Fourteen. We'd have the Slaughter, the Desolation, the Flesh, the Vast, and the Lonely. They will be— _easier_ for me than for an Assistant. I'm less human than they are. Did you know that Nikola forgot to give me food or water when she had be kidnapped for a week? I barely noticed. I'm far more powerful and far further along than them. if you need someone, it should be me."

"You're deflecting the question," Elias said. "That's not the real reason you want to be the center of the ritual."

"What does it matter what the real reason is?" Jon said.

"Do you think you can protect them, if you take this on?" Elias asked. 

Jon hesitated. 

"I told you, you're too—"

"None of them _deserve_ it," Jon hissed.

" _What?_ "

"Tim wasn't here for _curiosity,_ he was here for _revenge_ , which was why he turned so easily. Martin lied on his CV. He just wanted to take care of his mother, and can't quit because he can't get as good of a paycheck anywhere else with his credentials. He doesn't care about the _mission_ , he's not here out of driving _curiosity_ or interest in the subject, just for the _paycheck_. And Sasha doesn't have the _guts_. She transferred out of Artefact Storage after _three measly months_ and she tried to quit from the Archives. Whether or not any of them would _serve_ as a sacrifice, whether or not you're able to lead them by their nose through each of the rest of the markings, they do not _deserve_ to be the the conduit of our god. And they would _never_ make as good a fulcrum as I would. They might be bad enough that you would fail. You've spent so _very_ long a time planning this, can you afford to fail? Afford to wait all the centuries that it will take to build up an Archive powerful enough to try again?"

"And what would you do?" Elias asked, voice deceptively calm. "If I told you it wasn't going to be you."

Jon laughed. "Why? are you worried that I'd try to stop you?"

"I am asking because I honestly don't know." Elias said. "You give off rather mixed signals, Jon, and this is not the place for uncertainty."

"Then let me be perfectly clear," the Archivist said. "I am a loyal follower of our god, Jonah Magnus. If you tried without me—" He grinned. "I would simply _Watch._ "

#-------#

Tim, Martin, and Sasha could _feel_ it the moment that Jon said _something_ enough for all of Elias's attention to suddenly be pulled in and back and concentrated in that office. It was like a weight lifting in the Archives, a pressure off their chests.

"Quick, mods are asleep," Tim said. "Post the forbidden, uh—"

"Smuggle in dogs?" Martin said. "I think Jon might not mind this time."

"Yes!" Tim said. "Smuggle in the forbidden—"

"Guys?" Sasha said.

"Where's Jon," Daisy growled. 

She had not been there a minute prior. She did not seem to particularly care that the Archives were supposed to be off limit to the public. Given the look on her face, Tim was not surprised that Rosie had just let her down. It was a testament to the sheer amount of bullshit the Archives had come to get used to that none of the Assistants looked surprised whatsoever. 

"H—he's meeting with Elias?" Martin said. 

"Also sheesh, you are literally raising my hackles right now," Tim said. 

"Why didn't he— urgh!" Daisy cut herself off, looking around as if she could feel the presence of the Eye, which there _had_ been the faintest sliver of attention back after Martin had said his name. "He should not be meeting with that man."

"He kind of has to?" Sasha said. "He's the Department Head? So he reports to Head of the Institute? That's, uh, what it means? To work somewhere? You sometimes have to talk to your boss about what you have been doing?" The sense of _attention_ faded. "It's part of the plan."

"The plan is _too dangerous_ ," Daisy said. "He just went off for over a _week_ with no warning, no protection, and—"

"Are you…worried about Jon?" Martin asked,

"Oh my god, Gerry's right," Tim said. "You've _imprinted_ , haven't you."

"You are all going to get him killed!" Daisy screeched, sounding just a little bit on the edge of hysteria. "Did none of you check him over for—"

"Helen was there the whole time," Sasha said. "Daisy, he hitched a ride back with her, okay? Anything goes wrong and he's got a yellow door. There is no stronger protection we could have sent."

Daisy's chest was still rising and falling irregularly, but it was perhaps a bit less heavily than before. "Alright. Alright. He wasn't— he was safe. He had backup. And he's meeting with Elias now but that's alright because Elias is just an evil paper-pusher, it's all…all careful evil planning and manipulating and trying to arrange things from afar but he doesn't _do_ things himself, Jon is safe in there right now."

Tim and Martin exchanged a look.

"Yes, he's perfectly safe," Sasha said. "Our esteemed founder doesn't get his hands dirty."

Daisy let out a breath. "I'm waiting here. I need to see he's okay with my own eyes."

The Assistants all looked at each other, equally uncomfortable, but the only one of them with a _chance_ of succeeding in physically removing Daisy from the Archives was Tim, and Tim was confident enough in himself to be fully willing to admit that no, he actually didn't have a chance.

"Do you want a chair? Uh, some tea?" Martin asked.

"No," Daisy said, and she started to pace.

#-------#

"Now _where_ did you hear that?"

Elias had frozen suddenly— all extraneous movement suddenly _gone_ , the entirety of his body focused forward in perfect stillness and the full weight of his gaze on Jon and Jon was reminded _exactly_ how dangerous Jonah Magnus really was and exactly why they'd decided not to confront him head-on in the first place. 

Jon's mouth kept moving, almost disconnected from his brain.

"Your eyes are far older than the rest of you," he said. "And you…there is far more beneath the tunnels than you wanted me to know, isn't there. Robert Smirke. The origins of the rituals. The panopticon. I…I _Know_. I just Know things now, like there's an ocean of knowledge and sometimes droplets slip in. When Manuela talked about Rayner, it clicked."

"And do you have anything to say about that?" Jonah asked, voice dangerously soft.

"No?" Jon said.

Which clearly caught the man by surprise. "I— al—alright?" 

"I mean I _am_ curious how it works, sure," Jon said, words tumbling out in a rush. "If Elias Bouchard is actually still in there I would _love_ to get his statement. But if you're not interested in or incapable of giving me a statement then I see absolutely no reason why it should matter at all."

"Oh," Elias said. Jon could feel him pressing, looking for a lie, and finding none. "I…did not expect that from you."

"Because you think I'm too human?" Jon said.

"Because sometimes you _are_ too human and sometimes you are completely and utterly inhuman," Elias said. "I don't know and I can't see your motivation in all of this, and it makes me a bit nervous sometimes." His eyes widened slightly at his own words, and if Jon were not so invested in this chess match, he would not have caught it, but he Knew: even though he could not compel Elias, his presence did seem to make Elias still _talkative_. 

"I am the Archivist," Jon said. "My place is to learn everything, to _know_ that which does not wish to be known, not to _act_ on that knowledge. I— the ritual is _ours_ , our attempt to bring the Ceaseless Watcher into the world. And that will be beautiful. It will see all and through It all things will be known, and I can— can finally—"

"Can what?" Elias whispered, reverence edging his tone.

"I— I don't know," Jon said. "It's like— trying to describe a melody, if— if the world was mute and deaf. I do not know what will come after, only that it _needs_ to come. I need to Watch it."

"You are truly committed to this ritual," Elias said. 

Jon could feel everything _he_ had trying to pry the truth from Jon.

"I was made for it, wasn't I?" Jon said.

"Yes," Elias said. "Yes, you were."

Jon raised his chin. "Then let's begin."

#-------#

For some reason, Daisy was in the Archive breakroom when Jon returned. He shot a confused glance at Sasha who shook her head minutely as Tim said, "Well, he's back, Jon, you haven't had lunch yet, have you? Maybe take Daisy to lunch."

Jon just barely managed to stop himself from asking what had gotten into everyone, if only because a single glance at Daisy confirmed that ah, _Daisy_ had gotten into everyone. 

"S—sure, lunch sounds fine?" Jon said as Daisy walked over and leaned in, staring at him far too closely. "I, um, I'm okay, do you, um, want a hug?"

Daisy immediately enveloped Jon in what started out as a hug but quickly evolved into a pat-down. 

"I'm—I'm fine, I didn't get wounded," Jon said.

"Next time, you _take protection_ ," Daisy said. 

"I, um, I can't always do that?" Jon said. "I have to…the world isn't safe every hour of every day for _anyone_ , I— I can protect myself better than most." Then, crumpling a bit under her glare, "we could, um, set up a check-in system if that makes you feel better?"

" _Yes,_ " Daisy said empathically. "And I'm going to show you how to—"

Jon began steering her towards the stairs and out of the Archives because Tim had made it seem like they'd wanted a bit of space, Daisy's words about self-defense and check in protocols washing over him.

#-------#

"Okay, so, uh, does anyone else think that this is a huge problem waiting to happen, or is it just me?" Tim said.

#-------#

"I believe I may have located an Avatar of the Slaughter and of the Desolation," Elias said. A month had passed since the Dark; more time that Jon had been using to organize his Archives, aware of Elias's ever-present attention on him. "Come over here, tell me what you think."

Jon made his way behind Elias's desk to look at the monitor, and it was all he could do not to— to _scream_ , because Melanie King's YouTube channel _Ghost Hunt UK_ was pulled up.

"Give this a watch, tell me what you think," Elias said. He clicked on a video dated to December — 'Haunted Trains and War Ghosts' — and pressed play.

The Ghost Hunt UK logo filled the screen, and then it dived right in.

"Hi, I'm Melanie, and this is Ghost Hunt UK. And folks, we've been doing some real soul-searching and have realized that we don't really live up to our name, do we? We chase ghosts, but we don't _hunt_ them, not really. I've become friends with the real deal, and it puts some things in perspective. 

"So in the interest of delivering honest content for you, we're going to hunt some ghosts proper. Unfortunately I couldn't actually get a Hunter on board, as they're a bit busy right now with apocalypse prep — you know the type — but here to fill in is my good friend Agnes. Now Agnes is the Messiah of an ancient evil fear-god called the Desolation, just recently broke free of her destiny to destroy the world in a rain of fire and damnation, and has the power to shoot fireballs out of her hands but they're, like. cool magic fireballs that'll also burn ghosts."

The camera focused in on a tall woman with long auburn hair with an impeccable outfit that Jon recognized as Georgie's one fancy suit — the one that she'd joked to Jon that she'd wear to divorce court as her final act of revenge — standing next to Melanie. Agnes, as it was unmistakably Agnes, looked directly back at said camera with a somewhat-more-forlorn-than-usual expression. "Melanie. I've never tried to burn a ghost before."

"First time for everything!" Melanie said. "So. As you can see, we're here outside C.F. Booth Scrap Metal And Recycling yard. After our episode on Cambridge Military Hospital, I started looking into other military hospitals, and I noticed something about the paranormal investigator community. We all look in the same places. There’s a surprisingly small number of hauntings and cryptids that we all kind of swap between, repeating each other’s research and coming to similar conclusions. The more I looked, the more I realized that there was this huge list of places that my colleagues steered completely clear of without even realizing it. Some of this is almost certainly an instinct to protect us from drunks and weirdos who ate the wrong kind of mushroom, but I think a lot of it is to keep ourselves safe. Make sure we only go looking after encounters that others have already confirmed as safe.

"Ghost Hunk UK isn't interested in being safe anymore. We're interested in being _real_.

"Now, on a few different supernatural forums, there have been reports over the last few years about one metal rail car here in this yard that has never been on queue for recycling, and that sometimes, when it was late, there would be a strong metallic odor surrounding it, like old blood."

The screen shifted to a collage of photographs and portraits as Melanie's voice continued narrating: "The car in question was from World War II. The 11th US Army Hospital train, operating in the European theatre from August 1944. It crashed in April 1945. Derailed, killed 5 crew and seriously injured 14 more. There weren’t any patients on board at the time. At least, not officially. There was only one steel train car that avoided derailment. It was written about in detail by William W. Hay, who served as an engineer but later became a noted occultist. As for what he had to say about it:"

Letters in a script that evoked handwriting appeared overlaying the black-and-white photograph of Hay, with phrases bolded for emphasis, as Melanie continued narrating:

" _On the subject of savagery, I have myself seen the long-term effects upon the psyche of witnessing the violence men may inflict upon one another…. In more acute cases, there comes a strange mania, a fascination with the mechanisms of this violence…The smell of blood especially appears to incite in a certain sort of mind, numbed by the horrors of war, the urge commit unspeakable violence. I saw it once in the eyes of a young medic near Merey, a thing so grotesque that I have some sympathy with those who decided to crash, rather than risk his rampage."_

The shot returned to Melanie. 

"So clearly, this was quite the potential hotspot to investigate.

"I would like to note that breaking into scrapyards like this is highly illegal, and for you all not to try this at home. As you can see, we're dealing with high walls, sturdy gates, and security guards that will be making rounds and keeping an eye out for thieves. Luckily, one of my friends introduced me to — not even an Avatar, a direct manifestation, really — of another evil fear god. Say hi to Helen, everyone!"

A yellow door suddenly appeared behind and a bit to the right of Melanie, but did not open. Melanie kept talking as if a third person had joined them on the screen.

"Helen is with the Spiral, which is the fear of madness. She mostly these days feeds off kids who are crying over math, and she's very nice. She's agreed to hook us up with some teleportation, and to take care of any messing with any security cameras that might catch us in the act, so we're in!"

Melanie knocked on the door and it opened. There was a swirling static behind it, that she and Agnes walked through, and the camera panned closer and closer to, before cutting and resuming with Melanie and Agnes standing in front of an almost featureless steel boxcar, with a slightly curved roof, large windowless sliding door, and a few flecks of olive green paint still visible.

"And we're here! Wow, the smell of blood is nearly choking!" Melanie said. She slapped the side of the car. "This bad boy clearly can fit so many ghosts in it, amirite?"

"Melanie, this is—" Agnes said, wrinkling her brow the slightest amount. 

Melanie did not pause for a even second. She instead took out a handheld camera, pushed open the sliding door, and hopped inside — a considerable climb, what with the opening being chest height — and Agnes sighed and followed her, leaving the filming camera and crew outside. At first, the interior seemed dark and empty, and then the video cut back outside to a thick stream of blood clearly pouring out of the opening and the exterior camerperson's shaky voice: "Guys? Are you okay in here?" The shot changed to Melanie's camera, the interior lit presumably by a torch Agnes had turned on, that followed the stream of blood to an old metal hospital gurney covered in military-green fabric with a twitching body trapped in a white cotton bag, stained black near the bottom. 

"What we're seeing here looks like a genuine apparition, it—" Melanie said, then cut off as a shape ran out of the darkness to her left and charged over to the twitching while body bag, plunging a scalpel into it over and over again. "Are you— I hope the camera is picking this up, here we have what I'm assuming is the ghost of a man, mid-twenties maybe? dressed in Army fatigues and with a white armband with a red cross, he is currently plunging a scalpel over and over into the apparition, I— let's see if I can get a better shot of those eyes, those are _not_ human eyes."

As if on cue, the figure turned to the camera, which indeed was glaring at the camera with a look of utter violence and twisted carnage, the sclera strangely reflecting the dark and the blood. It leapt viciously and quite cinematically across the room towards Melanie, and the video immediately became a fumbled assortment of impressions and grunts, a "fuck" from Melanie and what looked like a solid knee being driven into _something_ , a shout, a tumble, a crash, and then the camera centered again on the figure looming in front of Agnes, the shadows of the carriage gathering strangely around her and a look of utter and single-minded focus in her own darkening eyes. Agnes plunged both hands into the chest of the thing in front of her and fire _bloomed_ around it, consuming it faster than should have been possible. The camera angle changed slightly as Melanie must have been scrambling around the side of the car but the look on Agnes's face never changed as she threw two fireballs in quick succession at the gurney and it too ignited. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, run, run run!" and more scrambling, and static, and then the video cut.

It resumed an unknown distance away in… not quite a forest, but offroad somewhere that was giving off very strong 'middle of nowhere' vibes with the camera pointing at empty lit space and the camerapeson saying "Hello? Hello? Is anyone—" then a yellow door appearing out of nowhere and Agnes and Melanie stumbling out of it, Melanie somewhat covered in soot and grime and Agnes impeccable. Melanie's eyes lit up when she noticed that her crew was there, presumably as it was confirmation that the rescue had gone without a hitch and not just because she was back in frame, and she grabbed a very started Agnes by hand, pulled her out of the door, and turned and heat-of-the-moment pushed herself up on her tip-toes to yank Agnes down into a full-mouthed kiss. Then she turned back to the camera. She was bleeding from one shoulder — must have been stabbed by the scalpel — and still holding one of Agnes's hands with no noticeable effect. Agnes was looking down at their clasped hands in shock. 

"So there you have it folks! Ghosts do burn! Like and subscribe, from here on out there's going to be a lot more _action_ on Ghost Hunt UK."

The video faded out to credits. 

"That's— that's it?" Jon asked. 

"An announcement at the end that they are following a connection of William W. Hay and that their next video should take place in India, and to expect it to go up in two weeks or so, but otherwise, yes," Elias said. "That was four months ago. The content posted to the channel before is…that of a typical ghost hunting channel. All of the content since has been about finding sites with genuine occurrences of the supernatural, and then usually setting the them on fire. It's very popular, they've more than quadrupled their viewership and make nearly £25000 per month on their patreon page."

"Just ghosts?" Jon asked. "Or— or isolated cases?" 

"See for yourself," Elias said. 

Jon skimmed down the selected playlist.

> **Blobs Of Meat Attack Us At A Picnic So We Have An Impromptu Barbecue [ft: The Flesh]**  
>  Ghost Hunt UK  
>  54K Views · 1 Month Ago
> 
> **Avatars Rate Skydiving With Mike Crew vs Simon Fairchild, Guest Judge Oliver Banks [ft: The Vast, The End]'**  
>  Ghost Hunt UK  
>  1.1M Views · 2 Months Ago
> 
> **Unfortunately We Missed The Clown Apocalypse So We Vlog About It Instead (With A Guest Star!) [ft: The Stranger, The Hunt]**  
>  Ghost Hunt UK  
>  972K Views · 2 Months Ago  
> 

"Obviously I called Simon Fairchild immediately to ask him about them," Elias said. "He said they were lovely ladies and after the brief misunderstanding where he was not allowed to eat their filming crew they helped him set up a youtube channel where he talks about scary deep sea facts. He's not sure if it's been feeding him but he's very much enjoyed interacting with 'The Youths.'"

"Fascinating," Jon said, trying not to hyperventilate. "I wonder what their goals are?"

"I tried to turn the Eye upon them, and could find _anything_ ," Elias said. "I was feeling rather…desperate, so I contacted them. First to see if I could encourage them to make a statement, then more bluntly to try to ask if they had any intentions to… engage in the alliances and careful negotiation and networking that some of the older avatars get up to. Usually I would not be so direct, but Agnes Montague was the heart of the Desolation's ritual and if the Desolation and the Slaughter were teaming up, well— and how they'd gotten help of the _Spiral_ of all things, which is not traditionally aligned with _either_ those Entities and I am assuming has been hiding them from my sight. I— it might be easier to show you." 

He placed a tape in a cassette player. 

There was a brief sound of ringing, then Agnes's voice came: "Ghost Hunk UK, how can I help you?"

"Hello, my name is Elias Bouchard," came Elias's voice. "I represent some of the interests of the Beholding, and I'm trying to understand what your channel is hoping to accomplish?"

"We're trying to produce quality entertainment and make a livable wage?" Agnes said.

"You seem to be gathering a number of allies?" Elias said.

"Oh, our guest stars?" Agnes said. "No those are just one-episode things, except Helen, she's actually our friend. Simon's been calling us to ask if he can be in another episode, so we're trying to find some pirate ghosts, go with a deep sea theme…"

"I mean — do you have a deeper agenda?" Elias asked.

"No, we— Melanie how do you say the thing?"

Melanie's voice came from the distance, but still faintly in the recorded phone conversation. "What thing?"

"The relaxing thing? Where you're cold." Agnes's voice was muffled; Jon could _picture_ her with one hand over the phone as she shouted to the other room, just like Sasha tended to do especially when she was trying to confirm research.

"Chilling?" Melanie said.

Agnes's voice came through again clear and direct. "No, we're just chilling." 

"It's just that there is an unspoken understanding that most Avatars have to not just speak about the Entities," Elias said. 

"None of the ones we've been hanging out with seem to care," Agnes said.

"You just make it far harder for the rest of us if people _know_ what is happening to them instead of raw terror at lack of understanding," Elias said. 

"Oh, wait, I know this one," Agnes said. "'That sounds like a you problem.'" 

"Is— is this for some ritual?" Elias asked. Even over the recording, Jon could hear the subtle hints of a compulsion, poking and prodding the truth towards the surface.

"No," Agnes said. Then, more confidently: "We're just chilling."

"Hey, who is that?" came Melanie's voice from closer.

"A Beholding avatar who wants to know what we're doing?" Agnes said, voice a bit muffled again. "For someone so pro-knowledge he seems a bit upset that we're telling people what's up, so maybe he's just pretending to be one?"

"What's his name?" Melanie asked.

"Elias Bouchard?"

"Give me that." There were brief sounds of a shuffle, then clear and direct into the phone: "Elias DOUCHE-ARSE. Fuck you, you don't get to call us, you and your stupid Institute can shove it up your—"

"Do I know you—?" Elias said.

"Oh, you don't remember?" Melanie said. "Turned us down using your library to research our episodes for _years_ , you prick. And now we're making it big and you want to hop on the train? Fuck you. Also, your vibes are rancid and if you try to ruin our fun with a ritual I'm going to fucking stab you, I don't care how many other people are in line to do it first." 

"I was only calling to ask—"

And then there was a dial tone as Melanie, apparently, hung up on him.

The recording ended.

"Right," Jon said. Elias just stared at him, but he didn't have much more of a response to give. "I, um. Suppose you want me to go in person to try to collect statements?" 

"Yes, I think that would be best," Elias said. "It should serve our purposes one way or another, and I am _very_ interested to see how that goes."

#-------#

The next morning, when Jon walked into the Institute and Rosie caught sight of him in the lobby, she started giggling.

He didn't even bother heading down to the Archives — there was no way he would face anything but ridicule there — so instead stomped all the way up to the third floor to Elias's office.

Elias, at this point, seemed to be used to the absolutely seething expressions with which a Jon-on-the-warpath stormed in to his office every few weeks, and didn't even look up. "That was fast. I'm surprised, I have to admit I was at a fundraising gala last night so I wasn't looking, but I assumed you'd at least take a few days to—"

"Check. Their. Latest. Video," Jon grit out.

Elias pulled up the webpage.

> **We Take A Beholding NERD To A Grifter Rave [ft: Beholding]**  
>  Ghost Hunt UK  
>  16K Views · 2 Hours Ago  
> 

He turned back to Jon.

"Slaughter and Desolation, check," Jon said. "I think I'm going to go home and sleep and then spend the rest of the week in my Archives as I try to regain my dignity."

When Jon was fully out of the room, Elias closed the door and hit play. And he tried, he really, _really_ tried — his Archivist's dignity was a serious business — but he was glad that Jon had left, because could not keep a straight face through the end of it.

#-------#

Georgie, of course, had stayed up late in Helen's halls to edit it. These days it was a fairly standard practice. The crew — as the old Ghost Hunt UK had indeed disbanded after CMH — was a group of talented and aspiring film students that Helen recruited in the first place with promises of an interesting project, fame, and an incredibly lucrative salary, but it meant that on top of their schoolwork they didn't really have any extra _time_ to go from the raw materials to a finished and polished production, so Helen just made the time.

Gertrude caught the notification when it had been posted first thing in the morning. She'd called in Gerry, who had been sleeping off a Hunt, to narrate the visuals for her. It took them two dozen watch-throughs before she was satisfied. Gerry, for once, did not seem to mind being woken for this task whatsoever.

Tim had subscribed to the channel months ago after he'd appeared, identity distorted by Helen to protect the Archival team from repercussion, on 'Unfortunately We Missed The Clown Apocalypse So We Vlog About It Instead (With A Guest Star!) [ft: The Stranger, The Hunt]'. He watched it as he waited in line to pick up two extra large cups filled entirely with shots of espresso, because unlike Gerry, he had not decided to try to sleep after their evening looking for monsters and he did have work. He shot off a text to Daisy immediately that Jon was old friends with Melanie and the crew, and whatever she may or may not see or any assumptions she might reach from there to please not go off and murder anyone, and received back an ominous 'I'm aware'. He then sent Melanie a text warning her that Daisy might come and try to kill them, and decided that adequately took care of all his responsibilities on the 'trying to stop Daisy from killing people' squad and returned to watching the video on repeat. 

He told Rosie about in on his way in, and left her watching it at the lobby desk as he practically skipped down the stairs to find Martin and Sasha in the Archives. Sasha had already seen it before it was posted because at this point her girlfriend was apparently not above using time travel to show her videos that she had cameos in. Martin had not seen it, though, and so Tim got to enjoy the experience of him trying very, very hard, and very much failing, not to laugh.

#-------#

> **We Take A Beholding NERD To A Grifter Rave [ft: Beholding]**  
>  16184 Views · 2 Hours Ago
> 
> **Ghost Hunt UK**  
>  _235K subscribers_
> 
> Today's episode features the urban legend of Alfred Grifter, a musician whose deal with the Devil left him  
>  SHOW MORE  
> 

"Hello folks, I am Melanie King, and this is Ghost Hunk UK. Today, we are covering the urban legend of Alfred Grifter, a musician who according to the many version of the tale turned to some form of witchcraft or dark arts or devil-worship to gain fame. Through either a curse, a badly worded wish, or a devil pissed off enough at being summoned, he ended up fated to play music so grating, so gut-churningly awful that he and his band 'Grifter's Bone' must sneak in anywhere they try to play. As the legend goes, the music is so dreadful that it causes members of the audience to rip off their ears and commit other acts of violent atrocities."

Melanie was standing in front of an empty bar with her usual but now viciously tilted smile. Jon was on the edge of the frame, legs swinging off a barstool far too high for him.

"Now, I actually have an in on this one, as Grifter? He and I have an _agreement of religion_ , you might say. Answer to the same _big guy_ , if you catch my drift. So one Slaughter Avatar to another, we chatted. Turns out he was never really human at all— he's a new manifestation of the Piper. The song of war and all that. It also turned out he and I had more in common than I first realized— he's in the ghost business. Specifically, he comes through every few years, rounds up the ghosts of folks who have died violently and are otherwise unable to pass on, and he and his band work their magic. Naturally, I asked if he'd be willing to have us for an episode, turn it into a nice fiery party, and he said he'd be delighted. So we set the date.

"And then this nerd showed up and asked to _observe._ " She hooked a finger over her shoulder at Jon. Jon very audibly sighed, and dropped his head into his hands.

"This is Jonathan," she continued. 

("Please Melanie.")

"But his _title_ is the Archivist. He's a big scary monster, one of _the_ most powerful Avatars of the Beholding out there, and you know what his terrifying powers are? If he asks you a question, you have to answer it." 

("Melanie don't tell them that.")

"So basically that one particularly stern Primary School teacher, or maybe an evil Librarian."

("I'm—I'm literally an _Archivist_ the— the library is _upstairs_ —")

"He's out here like us collecting encounters with all of the Fears, except unlike us, he's not living his best life, it's for _work_ , real downer, right? So we figured we could take him to a Grifter Rave, and give him the best of the Slaughter and the Desolation."

("Melanie please just stab me and let me leave.")

"Our camera crew has set up good angles to cover the room, but have safely vacated the premises, so it's about to be me, Jon, Agnes, and a bunch of ghosts. Of course, this video will not contain the real music as all of you mere mortals out there would die, we're dubbing over with something that, uh, expressed the feeling of the night and spiritually conveys what we were all hearing in our souls. Enjoy the rave!"

The lights dimmed and the bar was suddenly full of a number of rather confused-looking and somewhat bloodsplattered people and layered atop any sounds from the room Yakety Sax — the Benny Hill theme — began to play. 

The next two minutes consisted of shots that cut between Jon running, looking rather terrified if not of the ghosts than of the bodily harm they were indiscriminately doling out, Agnes throwing fireballs like there was no tomorrow, Jon dodging a fireball as it nearly singed the ends of his hair and no viewer needed to be a lip reader to tell swearing profusely, Melanie stabbing anything within melee range of her with a vicious glee, Jon tripping and falling and nearly getting trampled and ripped apart except Agnes saw and was there in a moment, blasting ghosts away with one hand and offering him a hand up with the other, Jon taking said hand and then both of them flinching and leaping backwards as he tried to shake off what was even from the camera angle across the room clearly a non-trivial burn, more ghosts tearing one another apart, more Melanie stabbing things, a quick cut to Helen roller skating backwards across the floor dodging in between ghosts perfectly doing a wavy-arms dance, back to Jon who was now half perched on the bar, leaning over it and running his hand under cold water, not noticing a ghost coming up behind him and getting stabbed in the shoulder, and the shift of expression on his face as he promptly _lost_ it, turned and grabbed a bar stool and swung it at the ghost, throwing the thing backwards, another shot of Melanie properly _dancing_ as the floor had cleared with fewer and fewer ghosts still standing, with room now to be performing what almost could be described as a murderous ballet, Jon hitting things over and over with the barstool as it splintered under the force of his wild swings, Agnes setting another on fire, then at long last Melanie plunging her knife into the heart of the final ghost, finishing a pirouette, and surveying the cleared room. The camera view switched to a corner angle which took in the whole scene: Melanie, Agnes, and Jon as the only three left standing, Agnes impeccable, Melanie splattered in blood, and Jon looking very _very_ bedraggled and somewhat feral, slowly lowering his splintered half of the chair.

The shot jumped to another angle in the same bar, but clearly a bit of time had passed: in the background the floor had been swept, broken stool placed by the door, and Jon was sitting on another stool as Georgie stood next to him, first aid kit open on the counter.

"And _that_ was our adventure this week, folks!" Melanie said. "Jon has fast-healing powers— don't even ask me how that relates to an Eye-god all for gathering forbidden knowledge, but as you can see—" The camera cut to Jon, now with his shirt off, Georgie dabbing at a spot on his shoulder that had smeared blood but the skin itself has sealed over entirely, his hand resting open-palmed on his leg, the skin a light pink but otherwise looking just fine. "—no Archivists were harmed in the making of this video. Much."

The camera returned to Jon again, his bloody shirt partially buttoned back up, notecards in his hand that he was glancing down at. "Please remember to like and subscribe for more exciting Fear content." He turned, and over his shoulder, presumably to Melanie: "I hate you", then turned back. "And a special thank you to our patreon donors: Monica White, Abby Flynn, —"

The video faded to credits.

> **grbookworm1818** _2 hours ago_  
>  so this is what the kids are up to these days
> 
>  **IcarusJ** _2 hours ago_  
>  anyone else think the Beholding guy is hot?  
>  **^Hide 106 replies**
>
>> **turbegem** yes
>> 
>>  **byron131** yes 
>> 
>> **The Jasperator** I hope he becomes a recurring character it was so funny when he lost it 
>> 
>> **KevinK** yee 
>> 
>> **melons** yes 
>> 
>> **— > Show more replies**
> 
> **jackye** _2 hours ago_  
>  wait is this ghost hunt uk? I thought they reported on hauntings?  
>  **^Hide 29 replies**
>
>> **PaemlaT** if you've been keeping up with their latest videos they lost a lot of their old crew and transitioned to a fiction show about fighting ghosts and other monsters with some recurring characters and lore. 'beholding' is one of the fourteen entities behind reality that power can be drawn from. we've met avatars of the slaughter, desolation, spiral, flesh, vast, hunt, end, stranger, and had a mention of the beholding in 'Unfortunately We Missed The Clown Apocalypse So We Vlog About It Instead (With A Guest Star!) [ft: The Stranger, The Hunt]' but this is the first time we've met an avatar of it. I recommend watching all the videos in order. there are some guesses what the other fears are, but nothing confirmed in the lore yet.
>> 
>>  **parceye** I came for ghosts :(
>> 
>>  **Part Time T** watch the video asshole it has ghosts
>> 
>>  **unit2** you know they meant real ones not special effects dick
>> 
>>  **Part Time T** _this comment has been removed_
>> 
>>  **CGI-nalysis** @parceye that's valid but I can tell you, as someone who does special effects and CGI for a living, theirs is some of the best I've ever seen. combine that with their filming style, they never set up shots to make the special effects easier. it's insane. I genuinely do not know how they do it on their budget. what I'm trying to say is sometimes I think the simpler explanation is actual ghosts
>> 
>>  **Dynamo** ghost hunter girlfriends!!! honestly the show's gotten so much better it's not the same crap you see on every other ghost show
>> 
>>  **p-brian** ghost hunt uk said be gay do crimes and their content got 500% better
>> 
>>  **— > Show more replies**
> 
>  **Strell_I** _2 hours ago_  
>  HELEN!!!! W I F E!!!!!!  
>  **^Hide 83 replies**
>
>> **tzhale** wait where is she?
>> 
>>  **Lief Anthos** she has kN I V E S FOR HANDS
>> 
>>  **djin** @tzhale 4:57
>> 
>>  **complex chalk** roller skating queen
>> 
>>  **x_X_k r i t t e r_X_x** tbh I'm 50/50 on it being real my brother claims he went through the Spiral's door but I can't summon it for my A-levels
>> 
>>  **Kirkio** the Spiral?
>> 
>>  **ender123** hot trickster god
>> 
>>  **Suba** the woman in the roller skates, her name is Helen or the Distortion and she works for/is the Spiral, she can teleport everyone and control time and has all sorts of wacky magic. she's kind of OP, I think it's supposed to be anything she believes becomes reality?, but she's such a great character that no one cares. people have been connecting her to this urban legend about a study hall that bends time for you bc of similarities in the abilities
>> 
>>  **franki** no it's in the GHUK canon too! she was consistently represented early on by a yellow door, and there's a message from our sponsors ad at the end of one of them where Helen says a lot of people have been asking where to find her, and lists ten different takeout orders and a coffee order and says if she's 'in the mood' it'll work to summon her. it's a bit of a thin connection, but the list has been collected by various users on the forums that talk about the yellow door that leads to the study hall. it's an urban haunting story, so makes sense GHUK would reference it for their lore.
>> 
>>  **jamie** god I wish that were me
>> 
>> **— > Show more replies**

**  
**

#-------#

There was no dignity for Jon in the Archives. Not when Tim started playing Yakety Sax every time he attempted to leave his office.

He tried to concentrate on cleaning and organizing things. They were probably halfway through fixing things up, and his special spooky room was perhaps two-thirds done, maybe more. Besides, even with all of the teasing, it had been… _good_ to see Georgie again, to see how well Georgie and Agnes and Melanie were all doing. It felt like they were…reaching the end, moving as far forward as they could, that they had reached the place where they were supposed to be.

And now he was reaching the end too: three more to go, the Flesh, the Lonely, and the Vast.

One day later, it would be down to two.

#-------#

Jon sat at the table at the little cafe that Elias had arranged his meeting with Simon for seventeen minutes after the appointed time, and a dottering old pinkish skeleton of a man with a cheery smile hobbled in.

"Jon! Jonathan Sims!" Simon said, and threw his hands up in the air like Jon was a dearest old friend of his and had such an expression of expectation that Jon stood up, rather confused, to greet him. Simon dragged him down— properly _down_ , the man was short, Jon hadn't loomed over anyone older than a preteen like this in his _life_ — and kissed both cheeks. "It's so great to finally meet you! I've heard _so_ much about you!"

"R—right," Jon said. 

"Melanie and Agnes say hello," Simon said. "And Georgie and the Admiral, the whole lot of them. They miss you _so_ terribly, you know."

"T—tell them I say hi back?" Jon said. "If—if you're in contact with them, I guess?"

"I am!" Simon said. "I got myself one of those fancy new cell phones and I talk with them and we've become close enough friends that they've added me to their special GhostHuntUK only group chat! Look!" Simon placed a phone screen in front of Jon's face and Jon dutifully looked at what was a completely unreadable series of images and emoticons. 

There was something involving a ghost symbol at the top that the chat was named, so he was fairly certain Simon wasn't lying about that. Not that he saw any reason for Simon to be lying? Unless this was a ploy to gain his trust but he— if he was supposed to be getting a message from this it was going completely over his head. He was never going to make fun of thinkpieces claiming that the Internet was re-inventing hieroglyphics ever again. Hieroglyphics he could _read_. What could only be an insular mixture of in-group jokes and he caught at least one variant of a _meme from the future_ —

"I'm, uh, glad that you are…having fun?" Jon tried.

"Oh, more than I've had in centuries. I've got pictures, look! Here is me with the crew from our first shoot, the one that started it all!" Simon said. "Did you watch the video? I was very proud of it. I won, hands down, it _should_ have been unaninous. Oliver Banks was biased because my patron decided I would avoid his, that's all. And here! Some of the crew had so much fun that they've come skydiving with me _again_! Tony's a real love, he's my favorite, but Melissa is also very nice. Both so helpful. Oh, and this is me at game night, winning. Melanie is a terrible loser who has not let us finish a _single_ game of Monopoly, she always gets mad and destroys the board, which is honestly better than the game itself. Here is me with the Admiral. Here is me with the Admiral again. This is me with Byu, Agnes's kitten. I was so sad when she gave the little guy away, he fit so well in my shirt pocket, see? I told her that I would take him but she said that kittens didn't stay small and that he wouldn't always fit in my shirt pocket and until I could prove that I wouldn't accidentally drop a cat in the neverending sky that I was not getting any kittens from her. But one day! Do you like cats, Jon?"

"Y—yes," Jon said. "I love cats?"

"Is there a reason that _you_ don't have a cat?" Simon said.

"My, uh, building I guess? Has regulations?" Jon said.

"Well, you're an Avatar now," Simon said. "Your building monitor or whatever they're called these days tries to give you a hard time, you just make them go away."

"I—that's— that's not what the Archivist does," Jon said.

"Mmm, no, I suppose you wouldn't toss them to the wind. Get them to relive their worst traumas and _then_ collect blackmail on them, perhaps?" Simon said. "Tit for a tat, you keep the cat. Or move to a better building. Is there a reason you haven't moved to a better building? Is it a money problem? I donate to the Institute every year, Elias better not be stingy with my funds."

"I— half the time I just stay in the Archives anyways these days," Jon said. "I'm really— I'm not living a lifestyle that's very conducive to keeping a pet right now."

"See, that's exactly the sort of practical mindfulness I've been trying to work on!" Simon said. "Agnes said that big picture thinking is good but it does not earn me cats. I bet Agnes would give _you_ a kitten."

"R—right," Jon said. "M—maybe when this is all over I'll ask her for one. Did, um…did Elias tell you what you were coming here to do?"

"Oh, this and that," Simon said. "To meet you, have a pleasant little chat. That sort of thing. You're apparently a far more devoted Archivist than the last one, both in terms of actually getting the Archives in order and in _being_ the Archive."

Jon stared at him.

"So what would you like for lunch?" Simon asked. "We're having lunch, right, that's what one does at cozy little cafes like this one. A lunch meeting! I don't really eat much anymore, but I find them so quaint!"

"I, um, also don't really eat much anymore," Jon said. 

"Then we can skip straight to ordering pastries, it's the best part!" Simon said. "I know _everything_ good here." He waved a waiter over. "Can we get two coconut cronuts and two orders of your house tea?"

Jon took a deep breath and decidedly Did Not Comment that he did _not_ like cronuts, and, in fact, excessive sugar felt like a shock to his system these days and would probably make him more nauseous than the inevitable freefall coming at the end of this. Elias had sent him to place nice, so he would play nice. 

"Did you know that Agnes has taken up baking?" Simon said. "It's delightful! She can do all the fancy things like touch hot pots and oven trays and she can tell _exactly_ how hot something is, doesn't need a thermometer at all, and she heats things with her hands sometimes too! She tries to pass it off as just a hobby, but she's deep in the throes of competitive baking, that one. I've been around long enough that I know these things when I see them."

"I, I uh, am glad she found her calling?" Jon said.

"Instead of destroying the world?" Simon said. "Yes. Well that's what _you're_ trying to do now instead, isn't it?"

"I— I'm just the Archivist," Jon said. "I'm just collecting stories."

"It's very unbecoming to lie to your elders, you know," Simon said. "Besides, it's obvious to everyone with eyes, the Eye is more active than it's been in two centuries, after Magnus's previous Archivist took out all the competitors now the new one is being primed for a ritual. It's fine, really! I remember feeling just like you did, when aquarium mania was going around. It's mass surveillance, isn't it? CCTV cameras everywhere, metadata, everyone's every move being tracked online, the paranoia of being watched and _known_ and secrets exposed is higher than ever— it's a heady feeling, I know. God knows— my god _and_ yours— that 'Elias' has been raring to try again. I'm curious about _you_ though: is this what you want to be doing?"

The correct answer was to take a minute to compose himself and answer with a platitude that Simon would nod and smile and Elias would nod and smile and they could all go on living their lives.

"No," Jon snapped. "I'm tired and it's been a very long day and I _do not like_ either coconut _or_ cronuts and I would appreciate it very much if you would throw me off a building now."

"Well, that's disappointing," Simon said. "I was hoping you'd have more…depth." 

On a strange instinct, Jon made the 'we're being watched' sign. 

And Simon caught it. Jon _knew_ that he caught it, he reacted very subtly but it was there in the straightening of his back, the slightest raising of an eyebrow, _Simon understood what the 'we're being watched' sign meant._

"But yes, yes, I understand, you yung'uns, it's all business and no perspective," he said. "Alright, I will give you my statement then throw you off a building and allow you to experience the Falling Titan, but I will need you to do something in return for me, Archivist."

Of course there was a catch. When wasn't there?

"What?" Jon said.

"Will you subscribe to my youtube channel? I only have eighty-nine subscribers and I have to say I've been feeling a little bit left behind what with how well Ghost Hunt UK has been doing."

 _They've all gone mad,_ Jon realized. _The whole world has gone mad._

"Y—yes, sure," Jon said. He didn't even know if he had a youtube account, but he could set one up and then subscribe to Simon Fairchild's youtube channel and never check it out again. 

"Fantastic!" Simon said. "I was apprenticed, you see, under Tintoretto. Dreadful man, but a decent artist. He was fascinated, you see, with the human figure. He found most of the rest of the work dreadfully dull—"

#-------#

> **I throw the archivist off a building ASMR**  
>  23 Views · 1 Hour Ago
> 
> **SimonFairchild**  
>  _90 subscribers_
> 
> like and subscribe for more deep sea facts  
> 

#-------#

"Vast, done," Jon said, having just barged into Elias's office without knocking and sitting down in the chair in front of the desk without asking.

Elias looked up from the thick, crisp sheet of expensive, _good_ white paper. "Ah, did you have a productive lunch with Mr. Fairchild."

"Quite," Jon said. "He says he wishes you the best of luck and if we haven't succeeded by the next fundraising gala he'll make an extra large donation. He also may be trying to make use of the library."

"Whatsoever for?" Elias asked.

"I'm not sure," Jon said. "Presumably, on a wild goose chase for ghost pirates. He threw me off a building. It was very exciting. What are you working on?"

"Drafting a pre-nupital agreement," Elias said. 

"Y—you're getting married?" Jon asked. 

"I haven't asked yet," Elias said. "But at this point it's almost a formality. I know that he won't say no. Not when I have something that he wants."

Jon's throat went dry. "W—what?"

"'Upon my death, all of my holdings, first amongst them the Magnus Institute and all ties therein, shall be transferred to my husband,'" Elias read. 

"R—right. A lot of folks care about the Institute, I guess," Jon said, mostly succeeding in keeping his voice from squeaking.

"And the full spiritual implications of 'all ties therein,'" Elias said, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Don't worry, Jon, you'll _know_ when this is relevant to you."

"R—right," Jon said. "I, um. Right well. I was just checking in to— to let you know that— right. I can— go, if you don't have another job for me."

"Oh, but I do," Elias said. 

Jon tried to sink as deeply into his chair as he could without moving. 

"I've located a Boneturner who's set up shop in Aberdeen. Take the rest of the day off to pack, and I have tickets for you to fly up first thing tomorrow," Elias said. "I doubt it'll take you more than an hour or so to get what you need. Report to me tomorrow afternoon when you've successfully obtained the mark." He slid a pair of plane tickets across the desk.

Jon reached forward, took them. "So this is it." He took a deep breath. "You'll hear of my success tomorrow, then."

There would be no more obvious a dismissal, so he let himself out of the office, focusing all of his energy on not shaking. He wouldn't show weakness. Not now.

Not when they were so close.

#-------#

"Are you sure he wasn't looking?" Jon said, blinking in the light of Helen's corridors as it resolved itself into something resembling the Archival breakroom.

"I'm sure," Sasha said. "I have a very good sense of these things now. Jon, I— I wanted to check in. How are you doing?"

"I'm fine," Jon said shortly. "It's working."

"It seems like you've been a bit— isolated," Sasha said.

"I'm being _watched_ ," Jon said. "I can feel Helen watching me, and Daisy checks in on me constantly, I'm _fine_."

"Right." Sasha ran a hand through her hair. "Well, I guess I just wanted to tell you that, uh, we're ready for the endgame on our end."

"Right. Good," Jon said. "Well, Jonah should be ready soon as well. One more, then we're on to the Lonely." 

She stared at him for a moment. "Take care of yourself, Jon."

"The plan _will_ work."

"We have the resources to consider changing the—"

"It _will_ work," Jon said. "Please. Just let me finish this." _I'd be too tired to keep going if you tell me I can stop_ , he didn't say. 

"Alright," Sasha said. "Be careful."

Jon didn't bother to say 'I will'. He didn't have the energy to lie.

#-------#

Jared Hopworth's gym wasn't much to look at from the outside. Just the faded outline of a dumbbell on a grimy window, and the words “Weights and Cardio” barely readable over the door. It could have been taken for out of business, except one of the doors was open.

The air inside the reception was cooler. There was a strange smell in the air, like the normal scent of gym-sweat had been covered in disinfectant. The single largest man Jon had seen in his life— perhaps larger than Jon remembered seeing him before, in another world— sat behind the desk, pecking one finger at a time diligently at the old computer keyboard.

"Um. Hello?" Jon says.

"'ello," Jared Hopworth said. He leaned forward, peering intently at Jon and despite being under the scrutiny of the Eye constantly, this was a _different_ kind of gaze, one that Jon felt the instinctive urge to flinch away from. "Can't do much about your skin. But you don't like the shape of your bones, think you're too—"

"That— that's enough!" Jon said.

Jared smiled, placatingly. "No need to be shy."

"I am Jonathan Sims," Jon said. "I'm the Archivist. I'm here to—" 

"Not much you could want, coming to me," Jared said. "Put summat in, take summat out. Which is it?"

"I want your _statement_ ," Jon said. He paused. "I'll…I'll trade you a rib for it?"

"Nah, I don't want a rib," Jared said. "I want eyes."

Jon's blood ran cold. "You can't— you can't have my eyes."

"Don't need _those_ eyes," Jared said. "But you can grow them, right?"

"I— I don't know?" Jon said.

Jared stared at him a moment longer, then confidently: "You can."

Jon was struck with the sudden memory of the statement of Jonathan Fanshawe regarding the autopsy of Albrecht von Closen. "I…yes, I think I can."

"Good," Jared said. "I need more eyes."

"What are you… what are you doing with them?" Jon asked.

"People need eyes," Jared said. "Some just don' like their own shape or size. Some because they aren't working. Oy, can you do different colors?"

"I… I'll try?" Jon said. "So you're…still building monster bodies?"

"Some," Jared said. "Some normal folks who just want to swap around their parts."

"W—why?" Jon asked.

"You're the ones who know better than me, right? With your fancy research. I just want to keep boneturning." He twisted his hand in what could have been— no, what _was_ , Jon was sure of it, the 'we're being watched' sign. "If folks come to me just as good as me going ta them. Can switch things out. Keep 'em fresh. Don' get crushed under my own weight that way."

"Right, well. Yes, um. I will trade eyes for your statement," Jon said.

"Can I get two dozen pairs? That should last me a few months," Jared said.

Jon grimaced, and nodded, and then began trying to grow eyes on his organs. 

The pain was exactly as bad as he thought it would be, but then again, most things were these days.

#-------#

"So. The Flesh," Elias said, packing up his briefcase. "How do you feel?"

"Terrible," Jon said, a bit confused. "Exhausted and— not really feverish, more of a bone-deep ache, like I've been sick for days." He looked towards the chair that he would usually be sitting in during these meetings, but Elias was standing. "He made me grow eyes and then took them. It was all I could do not to forcibly grab a statement off the street on the way back. Are you— are you walking out on me?" 

"The work day is well over, and I thought we might continue this talk at a more appropriate location," Elias said. "Besides, you look like you could use a drink."

"Is _that_ appropriate?" Jon asked. 

"We're planning on ending the world together, and in the past two months, I have knowingly sent you to get yourself stabbed, burned, thrown off a building, and to have back-alley supernatural surgery. I think we're a bit beyond HR complaints," Elias said. "Only the Lonely remains, and we have a long history of allegiance with the Lukases. I think that deserves a bit of celebration."

"R—right," Jon said.

The drive was awkward. Short— Elias apparently lived in a townhouse on the south side of Chelsea. His car was perfectly, perfunctorily clean. It had _new car smell_ , even though Jon _Knew_ it was nearly a decade old, just well taken care of. They didn't speak. When they arrived, Elias let Jon into the house, put his briefcase down, and after they had slipped their shoes off ushered Jon through a large, open living room to a stark tiled kitchen with an island in the center. 

"Sit down," Elias said, and he busied himself with pouring two glasses as Jon tried to make sense of what was happening. 

Worst came to worst, he decided, he would call for Helen and she would get him out of there and they'd move to Plan B: Jon reads no papers but Jonah Magnus can't appoint a new Archivist so long as he's alive and really, considering the number of powerful allies they'd been gathering, a direct assault on Jonah Magnus might be perfectly possible. Daisy would certainly be happy, from what his Assistants had been implying to him in the few seconds they could steal to meet. 

"Typically, one drinks the glass they are handed when they are celebrating," Elias said. "This is a bottle of 1991 Le Pin, one of my personal favorites." 

_You mean something that is stupidly expensive and I'm going to sit here trying to play the guessing game of is this expensive because it's good or expensive because it's expensive,_ Jon thought. He sipped the wine. It was…wine. Maybe a bit bitter. He didn't really know wine, it tasted like tannins. 

"Uh, good wine," he said. Elias raised an eyebrow and even though he _knew_ that the man couldn't read his mind he also knew the man knew exactly what he was thinking and he took a much larger gulp of it to…calm his nerves? Spite Elias?

To _something._

Elias laughed and put his own glass down on the island and turned around, opening a drawer to rummage for something. Maybe some biscuits that would taste better than the wine. Expensive biscuits usually at least _tasted_ that way. 

"So did, um, you actually want to hear about how the Flesh went?" Jon asked. "Or was that an excuse to get me to come to your house and drink a glass of your I'm sure very expensive wine." 

Elias turned back towards him, smiling. "Mostly just luring you here, I was watching the marking itself. The Boneturner was surprisingly well-mannered, especially for one so young, but it happens sometimes. I don't think there's anything you can tell me about the Flesh that I wouldn't know."

 _Yeah, except that Sasha got to Jared first,_ Jon didn't say.

In fact, he didn't say anything, because Elias was holding a gun. 

He tilted his head quizzically but Elias did not _comment_ on the fact that they both knew he was holding a gun, and Jon took another huge gulp of his wine, barely not managing to choke on it and begin coughing it up because god knows it would have broken this apparently-both-of-them-were-being-nonchalant-about-the-fact-that-Elias-was-pointing-a-gun-at-him charade, but his heart was pounding.

Elias was pointing the gun at him. 

This— this had to be it, didn't it? If this— if this was one long, drawn-out game of chicken, this— he just had to not flinch, because a traitor would flinch. Or maybe he should flinch, maybe this was the moment to call chicken, to open his mouth and call for Helen and let the Spiral whisk him away and—

Elias shot him once, clean through the heart.

And then again, and again for good measure.

Jon stumbled backwards, raising one trembling hand to his chest. It came back stained a cherry red and he was _bleeding_ , he felt — he felt _removed_ from it all but the wetness was spreading.

Whatever healing he'd come to rely on just…wasn't kicking in.

He was bleeding _so much_.

He was going to die here. 

He was really going to die here. 

"Oh," he said. He half-coughed, half laughed. "I thought it would hurt more."

The edges of his vision were getting spotty. He swayed on his feet. Elias took a step forward and caught him.

"The wine was drugged, you won't feel it at all," Elias said. "Call me sentimental in my old age, but you really were a magnificent Archivist. A terrible schemer, but a perfect Archivist. I don't need to you be in pain, Jon. I just need you to die."

 _Why,_ Jon could have asked, but he couldn't muster up the power to force the question, and he knew. They both knew. He couldn't bear to force it through his last choking breath.

 _Gertrude knows enough to stop his next attempt,_ he tried to comfort himself with, even as the world washed out slowly, in waves. _Tim is a Hunter with a pack, Martin has the Lonely, and Helen will protect Sasha. They'll all be fine. Gertrude wins, she always wins. Jonah won't succeed on his next attempt._ But it wasn't _comforting._ Something in him, something larger than him, wouldn't accept that. It was _him_ , it had to be _him_ , to dethrone Jonah from his tower. To end all of this.

Surprisingly, even with the shock and terror that blossomed through the rest of him as fast as the blood poured out of his chest and pain _didn't_ , it was that part of him that felt no fear whatsoever.

And so it was in Elias's arms, staring blankly at the ceiling, bleeding out on the tiles of the kitchen floor and oh, Elias must have chosen his kitchen to make it easy on the _cleanup_ —

—that Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Most Amazing Art Of The Final Scene by wikwalker can be found [here](https://savrenim.tumblr.com/post/623715760342220800/submitted-by-wikwalker-my-art-blog-is-under)
> 
> if you are not aware of the Yakety Sax Music, it is [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnHmskwqCCQ). I highly recommend that you give it a listen for The Full Experience. 
> 
> as I continue to be obsessed with meme anachronism: yes, 'your vibes are rancid' are something that to the best of my knowledge came _after_ the 'vibe check' meme, which is 2019. canonically, the apocalypse happened 18 October 2018, which means that Melanie _should not know_ that meme even if she was drawing from Georgie/knowledge of the future.
> 
> she's not. she's been hanging out with Helen, who's been dealing with weird time travel fluctuations in figuring out how to get closed timelike curves in her corridors, which means that Helen has been getting echoes from the normal future where vibes do indeed to grow to be a meme and Helen being Helen has started using her favorite memes with her friends (and yes means exactly what you think it means, there was a solid week of her bursting out of her door constantly shouting "vibe check" at people before she calmed down and used it in more moderation) but the entire Ghost Hunt UK crew have been getting memes from the future. 
> 
> feel free to come scream at me as always on tumblr [@ savrenim](https://savrenim.tumblr.com/)


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